Here's a Little Treat While We're All Gnashing Our Teeth -- Part 3 of Sam & Ainsley's Date

How are you doing? Because I'm NOT.

So, how’s it going? How many articles are you reading to convince yourself the election isn’t going to result in the absolute worst aspects of America ruling it once again? Because I’m reading a lot, and I don’t even care if I’m deluding myself because, dear reader, that’s all I’ve got left during this political hellscape.

Recently, I told you about a rather trying week that involved a pinched nerve and some doggie procedures. The great news is we’re both fine, even though Peggy didn’t eat any of her food today and I think she has pinched a nerve (again). But I dressed her up as a ladybug for Halloween because that is her favorite thing to be. Behold:

Peggybug!

She loves her fashions!

The good news is that after taking gabapentin for over a week, my pinched nerve felt okay. While it was a pleasant substitute for getting drunk since I have quit doing that, it really prevented me from being productive, along with the inescapable feelings of dread and rage and utter disappointment. So I stopped taking it two nights ago. Last night, I slept a total of maybe two hours, and every hour in my bed was restless and fitful, so I felt like drowsy garbage today.

That’s why I’m posting what amounts to a diary entry plus another installment of this West Wing fanfiction story that started out as Sam Seaborn and Ainsley Hayes on the date I wanted to write for them and ended in a terrible car accident that plunged them in the middle of a Washington, DC, sex ring scandal. I might make this the last part of this that I post because I’m considering possibly treating you to a taste of the original story that this turned into. (That’s always my mission as a fanfiction writer — borrow someone else’s characters and write until I find a whole new story.) But I hesitate, because I kinda feel like I should make people pay for my original writing.

Anyway, I’m sharing this dumb, fun thing with you tonight because we could all use a fun, dumb thing, and I would love to have even online conversations about anything that isn’t the news. I have been totally sapped of my creative energy, and I have no doubt I’ll get my groove back, but it’s just not going to happen for a little while. So please enjoy the next part of this nonsense, which finally includes appearances by Josh, CJ, Toby, and Leo.

(Here are Part 1 and Part 2 so you can catch up.)

Friday Morning – 12:30 AM

Across town, Josh was nodding off on the couch and getting ready to turn off his TV when his phone rang. When the name “Ainsley Hayes” appeared, it took him by surprise. Not a pleasant surprise. Not from her, not after midnight. Maybe she was drunk and this was a mistake. Maybe that was something he could hang over her head in the future for shits and giggles. He answered right away.

“Ainsley?”

“Josh?”

He sat up at the shakiness of her voice. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m… I don’t know. I don’t know, Josh.”

Alarmed, Josh stood up and started pacing, turning off the TV as he rose. “Ainsley, calm down. Where are you?”

“I’m at the hospital. Sam’s here too.”

“What happened? Are you okay? Is Sam okay?”

“We were in a car accident. I can’t talk about it on the phone. It’s under investigation and… Sam looked… He’s in surgery, they can’t tell me anything.” Her voice was wavering. She was getting overwhelmed.

“Which hospital, GW?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming. I’ll be right there. Sit tight, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll be right there.” Josh hesitated for a half-second before hanging up, then swiftly grabbed his coat and keys. Before he could turn his doorknob, his phone rang again—Leo. He answered before the phone could ring a second time. “Leo?”

“Are you watching the news?”

“I just turned it off. Leo, I just got a call from Ainsley Hayes—“

“She’s okay?”

Josh paused. “She said she and Sam were in a car accident.”

 “Yeah. Lenny Hagle and Jill Mackie from the Post are dead. News is saying that Sam and Ainsley are involved, but it was unconfirmed.”

“I can confirm it. I’m heading to the hospital now.”

Leo was silent. Josh could practically hear him trying to make sense of all of it on the other end of the call. “What did she say about Sam?”

“He’s in surgery. She doesn’t really know what’s going on. It sounds bad.”

“Is she okay?”

“She sounded shaken up.”

“Okay.” Leo sighed a panicked, heavy sigh. “Get over there. I’ll call CJ and Toby and let the President know.”

Josh had started locking up and getting in his car already. “As soon as I hear something, I’ll let you know.”

“GW?”

“Yeah.” He paused and inhaled abruptly. “Someone should call his parents.”

“I’ll take care of it. Call me when you know more.”

“Yeah.”

As Josh drove, his mind raced. He wondered if this was how Sam had felt on the way to the hospital after Rosslyn. Josh only knew secondhand what that journey was like for his colleagues, his friends. He knew how little they knew, other than he’d been bleeding from the chest and gasping for air, but at least they’d been able to see him before he was whisked away. And they were together, the whole group of them. Sam was alone. No, he was with Ainsley… but now he wasn’t. And now Ainsley was alone, and Josh felt uneasy about that too. He also hadn’t realized that Sam had been with Ainsley when he called him about Hagle earlier that night.

He had so many questions, and all the possible answers scared him shitless. Josh had barely computed that Sam had been hurt, that he wasn’t okay.

And was Sam dating Ainsley? They’d always been chummy, with their screwball comedy banter. Maybe the tiniest bit flirtatious in a purely friendly way. They all were. It’s what happened when a bunch of people who enjoyed each other’s company spent long, long hours with each other. Then Ainsley left, but apparently didn’t go far. Maybe their flirting was actually… flirting.

So many questions.

He also knew that everyone in the Western world knew about this. It felt invasive, voyeuristic. The Hagle situation only added blood to the water. Josh had heard gossip, sordid rumors, about the Minority Whip and the seedy situation he was allegedly involved in that extended all the way to the Speaker. But he hadn’t thought too much of it. There were always rumors about members of the House and their staff. As if they were too stupid to realize it would always be uncovered and used against them. Seeing the Republican whip in such a predicament would have been bad enough, and for the White House and the Democratic Party, it would be manna from Heaven. But seeing a Democrat… and that Democrat being seen by a high-profile Democratic White House Senior Staffer and a well-known Republican… that was catastrophic.

If the rumors were true.

Josh wondered how many traffic laws he’d neglected to follow on his trip over. He’d been so distracted, and the traffic was so light, and he’d basically sailed into the parking lot of the emergency room. He parked his car haphazardly and rushed towards the sliding doors of the entrance, tripping over his own feet a bit.

When he entered the ER, he found himself in a waiting area, and he zipped over to the reception desk.

“Hi, you have a patient here named Ainsley Hayes. She’s waiting for me.”

“Your name?”

“Josh Lyman.”

The woman behind the desk paused and peered over her glasses. “That sounds familiar.”

He decided to pull rank and showed his ID. “I work for the White House. Listen, I need to see Ainsley, but do you have any other information on another patient who was brought in, Sam Seaborn?”

“I’ll check on both for you. You said ‘Hayes’ was the first one?”

“Yes. H-A-Y-E-S.”

The woman clicked a few keys and looked at the screen. “Ms. Hayes is here. I can have someone bring you back. Let me check the other name. Spell it for me?”

“S-E-A-B-O-R-N. Sam.”

“Okay…” More clicks. Another look. “He’s still in surgery. That’s all I know right now, but I’ll have someone bring you to see Ms. Hayes.” The woman picked up a phone and paged someone from the ER to report to reception. “Just a few minutes, you can take a seat.”

“Thank you.” He went towards the waiting room chairs, knowing he wasn’t going to sit. He had too much nervous energy. And he knew there was no one he could call. There was no way in hell he was getting Donna wrapped up in this. He was alone. He never thought he would ever want to see Ainsley Hayes so badly, but he was desperate to not be alone with his own thoughts, and he knew she was scared. Probably as scared as he was, maybe more.

In another part of town, Toby stood numbly in front of his TV, watching the news that he’d turned off twenty minutes before he’d gotten Leo’s call. The wreck was horrific. Tarps had been raised to block where victims, living or dead, were being removed from the scene. Toby had seen enough of the cars to know that this was a dire situation. And his deputy was part of it. The big brotherly instincts he usually tried to suppress were threatening to awaken. He took a few deep breaths before calling CJ.

“Toby, do you know anything?” CJ’s voice was low, something she sometimes tried to do to cover the fact that it was shaking.

“Only what Leo knows. So probably the same as you.”

“No one knows how bad Sam is?”

“Doesn’t sound like it. We only know he’s in surgery, which strikes me as pretty damn bad.”

“Lenny Hagle and Jill Mackie… What were they doing in a car together?”

“I have no idea.”

CJ was silent. “Okay.” She had a job to do. “We need a statement.”

“Yeah.”

“As vague as possible and in support of Sam, condolences to the families of Hagle and Mackie…”

“Don’t leave out Ainsley.”

“No, I know. Sorry, just trying to figure this out.”

“I know.”

Both CJ and Toby were silent as they attempted to unscramble the impossible, helpless feeling.

“CJ, I can write it. You can issue it. We’ll get on a text chain with Josh and get to the hospital. We’ll have a press conference at nine in the morning once we have more information from the police.”

“Which police?”

“What?”

“We don’t even know which jurisdiction this is, do we?”

Toby seethed silently. He knew the number of law enforcement divisions in Washington DC was obscenely ridiculous. “Just refer to law enforcement for now.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’m going over there now. I’ll see you there?”

“I’ll see you there.”

What felt like an eternity later, a nurse came to the reception area asking for Josh, and she led him back to where the patients were. Behind a curtain, on a gurney, holding a bottle of water like her life depended on it, was Ainsley. She was pale, her eyes wide and red and bordered by smudged makeup. Her gaze was upwards, toward the TV set.

“Ainsley?”

Her attention shot to the door. “Josh.”

She shifted, but Josh rushed toward her, dropping his backpack on the floor. He collected her in a hug that they both needed. She felt her emotions giving way, and Josh felt her trembling. He started rubbing her back.

“It’s okay, I’m here. You’re okay.”

He pulled back to look at her better, pushing her hair off her face and revealing the dressed injury. Her eyes were watery.  

“Are you okay? This looks bad.”

“I have a mild concussion and some stitches. I’m fine. The car hit Sam’s side.”

Josh felt his shoulders sink. “God. How was he?”

“He wasn’t conscious. His head was bleeding. They told me they brought him to surgery, but I don’t have any other information. Except that he’s still there. I don’t know how long he’ll be.”

Ainsley shook her head nervously, unable to hold back the tears that were starting up again. Josh ran his hands through his hair, his signature nervous habit. An awkward silence followed as Josh glanced at Ainsley, hoping for an answer to at least one of his questions, which, he knew, was probably really inappropriate to ask at the moment.

“Yes, Josh, Sam and I are dating.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Three months.”

“Three months???”

“We’ve been dating, Josh, not smuggling heroin.”

“No, no! I just… Sam hasn’t mentioned it.”

“We’re trying to figure out what it is.” Ainsley sighed. “And enjoying whatever it is in the meantime.”

Josh put his hand on Ainsley’s shoulder and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Can I sit?” He gestured to the foot of the bed. Ainsley nodded and moved her legs to make room. Josh put his hand on her ankles, which were crossed. For a moment he worried that he’d crossed a line by touching her, but she didn’t protest or move. “I knew you and Sam stayed friends after you left, but I hadn’t realized... that was going on.”

“That’s because we didn’t tell anyone.”

“Cat’s out of the bag now. I’m certainly not keeping this to myself.”

Ainsley let herself laugh a bit. “I’m a little surprised he didn’t tell you.”

“Well, I would have warned him against this.”

She laughed again. She needed to. It was all she had left.

“Asked him what kind of Kool-Aid he started drinking.”

“It’s not like he’s joining the Dark Side.”

“No, he’s just courting it, buying it drinks. You sure he’s not using you for something else?”

Ainsley smiled. Josh returned it. She remembered meeting Josh, when she was first offered her job in the White House. How protective Sam was of him. She could humiliate Sam on live TV, but she couldn’t touch his best friend, especially not with the Second Amendment. Then just as vehemently, he had stood up for her. Defended her. Then threw her a welcome party. At that point, he barely knew her. She got the sense that he’d do that for almost anyone.

Josh took a look around, gauging their privacy. “What did you not want to talk about on the phone?” he asked softly.

“Hagle.”

“Yeah?”

“Sam called you about Hagle because we both saw him talking to Jill Mackie.”

“From the Post.”

Ainsley nodded. “The police were here. Hagle is the one who hit us. Jill Mackie was in the car with him. They’re both dead.”

“Yeah.” Josh nodded. He had to tell her what he knew. “Ainsley, the press knows about the accident.”

Ainsley’s face fell a bit, flushed with a mixture of dismay and fear.

“They know about Hagle and Jill Mackie, and as of the last time I saw the news, you and Sam were unconfirmed. But I confirmed it with Leo.” Josh watched Ainsley start trembling. He gently put his hand on hers. “The White House will be releasing a statement. I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know what I knew.”

“And what everyone else in the world knows, apparently.”

“Yeah.”  

“Josh, Hagle saw us at the bar.”

His posture changed, the tension growing in his back and shoulders. “He saw you?”

“Yes.”

“And then he… Are the police saying this wasn’t an accident?”

“They didn’t say it explicitly.”

Josh was speechless. Ainsley was exhausted, still reeling from the entire night’s events. She wanted to sob openly, loudly, but she knew it would hurt her head and she didn’t want to even muster the energy.

“Sam told you about the…”

“Yeah.”

“Did anyone else hear you?”

“No. When he came back from your call, he waited until we were in the car to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Josh pinched between his eyes, willing the desire to go to sleep to fall back. “Did the cops bring it up at all?”

“No.”

“Did you mention it to them?”

“No, it’s just a rumor. If it’s true, it’ll find its own way into the open.”

“After tonight, it’s probably dangling out of the trunk of Hagle’s car.”

Ainsley looked at Josh. He was looking straight at her. Sam had told her about Josh’s bad poker face, and she knew she was looking at it. The thought that Ainsley and Sam were targeted shook him to his core. Looking at the rawness of his expression, she couldn’t hold back her feelings.  

“He tried to kill us.”

Josh shuddered, then noticed that Ainsley was starting to break. “Hey…”

Josh slid closer to Ainsley to hug her again, this time letting her cry into his chest. “What if he killed Sam?”

“Sam’s gonna be okay, Ainsley. I swear, if anyone can survive something like this, it’s him. He’s in way better shape than I’ve ever been, and I survived being shot in the chest.” Josh felt her laugh through her tears, and he pat her back. “I’ll stay here as long as you need me.”

“Oh Josh, you don’t have to do that.”

“He’d do it for me.”

Ainsley took a breath to try to collect herself. She hugged Josh back.