Lunch

Lunch

Author: Sirius

Email: wildwolf514@yahoo.com

Rating: G

Pairing: Willow/Sam Seaborn

Disclaimer: They’re not mine. Could I have them if I showed you my puppy-face? No? I didn’t think so.

Timeline: Pick just about any hard week during the Bartlet administration and sometime after Oz left the scene.

Author’s Note: Malana wants a fluff-fic and a fluff-fic she shall have.

Summary: It’s been a tough week for Sam.



Sam spared a glance for the clock, hoping that it was almost time to go home – or rather, late enough for him to **justify** going home. Unfortunately, it was only two, so – even though he’d been in the West Wing since five o’clock that morning, he couldn’t make himself leave the building and head to his bed.

Unsteady hands reached for his schedule and bleary eyes struggled to make sense of words written in a hand that wasn’t his; it looked like Bonnie’s. But why would Bonnie schedule a lunch meeting for 2:15pm and not note the topic or the other people involved?

With a muffled groan, he dropped the schedule on his desk, rested his elbows on the wood and his head in his hands. God, he was so tired. He would have given almost anything to be out of this building – much as he loved it. He wanted to be on a plane to California. He wanted to see the red hair that would tell him she was nearby. He knew CJ would probably want to kill him – his gentle one was so much younger than he was – but he didn’t care. He’d bumped into her – literally – on one of his trips home, not in the best of moods after everything that had happened with this Administration, the effects of Rosslyn and the MS scandal catching up with him. Just hearing the term “Healthgate” made him want to punch the nearest wall.

She hadn’t set out to be involved with him at first – she’d been with someone else then. She just thought he might want to talk to someone who wasn’t as close to the situation… and he was safe talking to her. After all, who would believe that the Deputy Communications Director would confide everything – almost – to a young woman who was not yet out of her teens? There was something about her that just… calmed him. And he talked to her… spoke for hours on end while she just listened, tears in her eyes at times, caring so much for the hurts of this man she had just met, this friend. When the talk had ended and each realized that other obligations were waiting, Sam had handed her a small slip of paper with three numbers – home, cell phone and office. On the bottom of the slip were two email addresses, but he had recommended using the personal one if she didn’t want the messages getting lost in the shuffle of work-related email.

He said he felt a little cleaner now, and thanked her with tears in his eyes. He promised her that he would pick up the phone if she ever needed to talk, meaning every word of it, but never thinking that she would call.

Bit by bit, he had let her slip from his mind… but when she did call some months later, hurting and alone, he walked out of Senior Staff to talk to her. It didn’t win him any points with Leo, but the Chief of Staff calmed down eventually, once he realized that Sam wasn’t going to say anything other than that the call had been from a good friend who’d needed him. He didn’t talk about it to Josh… or to Toby… or to CJ. He did, however, mention it to Bonnie. “She’s a good friend,” he said, “who helped me when I wasn’t having the best time of it. If she can’t reach me and her call ever comes your desk, put her through. I don’t care who I’m talking to… I don’t care what I’m doing. Put her through.” Bonnie, shocked, agreed to do what he told her… and never said a word to anyone else.

Now, sitting here in an office that was far too quiet, thinking on a day that had been too long and would be longer still, Sam only wanted to see her, wanted to feel her hand on his, hear the voice that could soothe the exhaustion… so when he felt the tiny hands on his shoulders and smelled the scent of jasmine… her smell, he thought he was dreaming.

Sam didn’t fully realize what he was doing as she led him out of his chair. He was still half-lost in memory as she guided him to sit on the blanket she had spread on the floor. There were still shadows in his eyes – and under them – as she coaxed him to eat the food that she had brought… the first thing he’d eaten all day.

Finally, some part of him realized this was no dream and she was really there. “Willow?” His tired mind would let him say no more.

“Shh,” she said. “I called Bonnie and arranged this yesterday before getting on the plane. You just sounded so down the last time we talked… I thought you could stand to relax a little.” He nodded, only half understanding her. Bit by bit, the sounds outside were being muted by the gentle calm washing through him, muffled by the edges of sleep as Willow whispered softly to him. He didn’t notice as she put away the remainders of lunch. He didn’t notice as she moved him gently so that his head rested in her lap. His eyes, slowing closing, never saw Bonnie looking in from the doorway… or the look that passed between Willow and his assistant. As he slid into sleep, all he knew was the feeling of her fingers running through his hair, and a deep, abiding peace.

**Fin**