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MY GUESTBOOK
�Five days, six nights, in Hawaii, then a quick stop in Florida to see my mom before coming back to put out whatever fires have come forth in my absence,� Josh said, pushing a folder toward me. The folder contained hotel information, numbers for scuba diving lesions, surfing instructions, volcano tours, and about a hundred other tourist-y things that people do when in Hawaii on vacation. �I�m going to make this work with Donna, Sam. I have to,� he said, his voice full of honesty and emotion that I hadn�t heard in his voice since he was recovering from the shooting and he was still in the �happy to be alive� state that had him extolling the virtues of everyone from the Nurse Ratchet-wannabe in the ICU to the goddess that is Donna Moss. Of course, he was pretty doped up at the time, so we all took everything he said with a grain of salt, though none of us disagreed when he started going on about how amazing Donna was. Even his poetic semi-stoned dissertation of the way that everything good in the world was Donnatella Moss fell short.
�Good. Just remember that I love you like a brother, Josh, but you don�t deserve her, and if you hurt her I�ll kill you myself,� I said honestly.
�Leo told me that the Secret Service was on notice to, and I quote, �dispose of� me if I were to break Donna�s heart,� Josh said with a soft smile. He looked at me with questioning eyes. �You�re gonna stay, right?�
I nodded and some of the tension that Josh had been carrying around for god knows how long left his body.
We started talking about what my responsibilities would be, both while he was gone and after he got back. He went on for almost ten minutes on how I needed to rein the President-Elect in on Kazakhstan and I was about to tell him what was really happening�Bartlet had told me that, since CJ knew, Josh might as well be let into the loop as well�when Ronna poked her head in and said that the President-Elect had a few minutes if we were ready.
The President Elect entered his office where Josh and I were waiting for him. I had yet to meet Matt Santos and felt more than somewhat awkward about just showing up and announcing that not only had I been hired�Josh and I had agreed that there was no need for him to know about my reticence�but that I would be acting as his Chief of Staff for a week while Josh regained some measure of control over his sanity.
�Sir, uh, this is Sam Seaborn. He�ll be covering for me this next week,� Josh said. Leave it to Josh to dive in headfirst like that.
To his credit the President Elect didn�t look and sound as confused as he could have. �Sorry?�