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Laconia
Matt Santos is a lousy driver. He brakes too fast, he makes turns with only one hand on the wheel, and he refuses to admit that he had no sense of direction. Consequently, he and Josh spend more time doing U-turns and looking at the map than they do arguing about education policy.
The thing is, Josh knows New Hampshire. He knows the shortcuts and the back roads. He and Sam had learned them together by following Bartlet to what seemed like every church, elementary school and abandoned mill in the state. Josh considers himself a veteran of this kind of thing, and if he were driving, he could get them to the diner meet-and-greets and the town halls effortlessly. But there's something about being in the passenger seat that prevents Josh from telling Matt to turn right at the next street until it's too late. Matt slams on the brakes and pulls over to attempt a 7-point turn to reverse their direction on the narrow road. A truck honks and drives past them, coming a little too close.
Josh forgets how buried Sam is in his mind until the smallest, strangest things bring him up. Josh wonders if things had been different, if they'd be running this campaign together. He wonders if he should be going to California to chase Sam down and bring him on board. But he chased Sam once and he thinks that maybe there are only so many times you can ask a friend to love what you love.
The side of the car scrapes against a snow bank as Matt shifts into reverse. They are only a couple of centimeters away from backing into lamppost.
"Whoa," Josh says, looking over his shoulder and Matt brakes abruptly.
"I saw it, Josh," Matt says. He reaches for the gear shift to shift into drive, but his hand misses and he grabs Josh's knee. Matt laughs softly, gets the gear shift this time, and they take off into the street, salt and sand crunching under the tires.
Keene
Matt's working a crowd of men waiting outside the corner store for their wives, who are inside picking up hamburger for dinner and their Powerball tickets. Josh wonders how long it'll take for one of them to talk Matt into buying his own chance at the lottery. He tries to remember if lottery winnings are an acceptable form of campaign funding, or if it violates some soft money law.
Matt looks over his shoulder, finds Josh in the small crowd, and waves for him to come over.
"This man wanted to meet the guy who was running the campaign," Matt says as Josh comes over to join him. "Josh, this is Frank Middleton."
"Frank, good to meet you," Josh says, shaking hands. "I'm Josh Lyman."
"You used to work for Bartlet," Frank says.
"President Bartlet, yes," Josh answers. Josh hopes this guy isn't a distant Bartlet relative he should recognize.
"He throw you out?"
Matt laughs at this but Josh can't quite get past a smile. New Hampshire natives - of course they'd think the only reason you'd leave a man like Bartlet is if he threw you out.
"No, sir. He gave me up to the Congressman here."
"So Santos is your new guy?" Frank says. Matt laughs again at this and Josh feels himself get red in the face. A woman who seems to be Frank's wife comes over to join them, Matt asks her, "So, a three million dollar pot for the drawing on Wednesday?"
Pelham
Josh knocks and when Matt opens the hotel room door, he has his cell phone pressed to his ear. He's talking about taxes and Josh thinks it must be one of the campaign guys checking in. Josh is turning on his laptop when he hears Matt say, "honey" and he realizes that this is Mrs. Santos on the other line and they're not talking policy so much as negotiating why Matt is far away from home.
Josh gets up to go and Matt mouths "No, stay," and something that might be "I'll be finished in a minute." Josh sits back down and tries not to listen.
Josh has been here before. He's just not very good at being the third person in a two-way conversation.
***
"Lisa, this can't wait – really - of course we're still in New Hampshire."
Josh had taken off his jacket and had started complaining about the lack of press coverage before he even realized that Sam was on the phone. Sam looked exhausted. He sat on the edge of the bed, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other running over and over through his hair. Josh nodded his head to the door and was halfway out again when Sam gave him the look that was supposed to say, "It's ok, stay" and really said "Please don't go."
Josh had been confused by the intensity, so he sat in one of the too-small armchairs, turned on New Hampshire local news on mute.
"Lisa – listen to me. This can't work."
Josh had been sure, for a heart-attack second, that Sam was leaving. The campaign wasn't going to work, he had made a mistake, and he was going back to his life. And then Josh had really listened to Sam's voice.
"No, we can't wait until I come back. I'm not coming back, Lisa. This is the real thing. I need to be here."
Josh couldn't breathe. He had stared at the table, the brass key sitting on top of the terrible scuffed Formica. He had traced the key with his finger.
When the phone call was over, Sam sat with his hand on the receiver, ready, it seemed, in case it rang again.
Josh watched the news. Rain forecasted for the next day. A water main break downtown. What the hell had happened?
He had heard Sam fall back on the bed, the comforter rusting as though it were made of tinfoil.
"I didn't know that's what I was going to do when I called," Sam had finally said.
"Huh." Josh had gotten up and flopped down on bed next to Sam.
"I just wanted to talk. To tell her how things were going."
"Uh huh," Josh had said.
"I was going to tell her about last night. The speech, how well it had gone, how it felt to have Bartlet read what I'd written – she doesn't understand, Josh," Sam had said. "I don't know if I understand it either."
Sam had suddenly leaned over, his mouth coming closer and closer to Josh's.
***
Matt hangs up the after a few minutes of monosyllabic arguing and interrupted sentences and without having broken off his marriage. He sets his cell phone down and smiles at Josh. He does not explain what they were arguing about, and Josh does not ask.
"Want to get something to eat?" Matt says. "I know the hotel restaurant is still open."
"Doesn't matter if they're still open. You're their best customer, Congressman. They'll make you anything you want." Matt is always hungry, and they've spent a fairly large portion of their budget in hotel restaurants. "I wanted to go over the itinerary for tomorrow."
"Sure, let me see." Josh grabs a notepad out of his bag and hands it to Matt, who glances at it as he opens the door. He waits for Josh to go out first and then just as he's closing the door behind him, Matt tosses the notepad back inside the room.
He looks up at Josh and grins. Josh feels his face go slack before he starts to laugh.
"That was - that was sneaky, Congressman," Josh says, still laughing. "You could have just asked me not to bring the itinerary. To take a dinner break."
"You never take breaks, Josh. This is the sort of thing I have to resort to with you." They start to talk down the hall. "Plus, it's good to see you laugh."
Josh has the urge to clap Matt on the shoulder. He feels a magnetic pull toward Matt and his arm hurts from resisting.
Exeter
It's 4:30 in the morning and they're waiting in the car as it warms up. There's a thick layer of ice over the windshield, which Matt is silently refusing to scrape. He's set the defrost on full blast. Matt flicks on the dome light and tries to read the map.
After several long, silent minutes where Josh is still blinking back sleep, there's only a small section of frost melted away at the bottom of the windshield. Josh is overheating in his winter coat, and Matt doesn't seem any closer to finding the road he wants than Josh is to understanding why Matt doesn't just ask Josh to read the map.
And so Josh is pulling off his gloves and is about to offer to just scrape the windshield himself when Matt drops the map and grab's Josh's arm.
"You have a scar," Matt says, not quite holding Josh's hand, examining the palm with the same frown he wore when he studied the map. "Looks like you got stitches."
"Six," Josh says, his voice tight.
Matt looks up. "Is it from Rosslyn?"
Josh decides that the safest answer is yes. It is from Rosslyn, in a way, even if he put his hand through the window several months later. Matt's fingers hover above the scar, and then he strokes the inside of Josh's palm.
"I watched it on the news. Didn't seem real," Matt says quietly.
Josh knows Matt is starting to understand that being President is a lot more complicated than just making policy, and he wants to say something about how that's the difference between a serious contender and the rest of these guys, but he's having enough trouble keeping his breathing sounding normal as Matt moves his fingers moving up and down across Josh's palm
"Looks like the defrost isn't making much of a difference," Matt says, letting go of Josh's hand and looking up at the windshield.
"No, you, uh, you probably have to scrape it," Josh stutters.
Matt's is about to get out when Josh stops him.
"Matt," Josh says. Josh is quiet for longer than he means to be. "I'll do it," he says. "I've done this before."
Conway
Matt seems to get taller when he shouts, and it doesn't help that Josh is slouching against the trunk of the car. Josh still isn't sure if Matt is in this to win or if he's only trying to shape the debate, and so he keeps pushing Matt to commit to his positions until Matt explodes and they have the same argument over and over about the importance making this more than a campaign of ideas. Josh asks if Matt knows what this is going to take, and Matt asks Josh why Josh came to him in the first place if he wasn't sure. Josh tries to explain that every candidate goes through this kind of doubt, and Matt says that Josh is the one who's doubting. It goes on and on until Josh's fingers are numb in the cold.
"Josh - " Matt says, interrupting, and Josh can't even remember what he was about to say. "Let's go back to the hotel. I'm tired."
Josh is tired, too, and so it's easy to agree.
***
There was a day when Josh was thirty seconds away from quitting the Bartlet campaign. The team was having an impromptu meeting on yet another family friend's back porch. Their hosts were cooking dinner, which meant it was likely they were going to be subjected to another pot roast with turnips and pie – everyone here baked so much goddamn pie that Josh was sure by the end of the primary, he'd never want dessert again.
The Governor has started talking like they'd already lost. "At least we got a good turnout," he kept saying. "At least we made Hoynes fight."
"At least someone's fighting," Josh said, without really meaning to.
"Well, why don't you go back to him, then, Josh?" Bartlet spit out and the porch went silent.
Leo coughed. The Governor stood and disappeared into the kitchen, calling out for one of the inhabitants and praising their housekeeping.
Josh was ready to give the Governor's suggestion due consideration. He could hear Bartlet's voice ringing out in the kitchen; he felt a stab of disappointment. Leo wasn't meeting his eyes.
Sam handed Josh his cup of coffee as though it were the only thing he had to give, and turned back to the yellow legal pad which held the notes for the Governor's revised stump speech. Josh looked down into the cup and took a sip. If Josh quit, he knew he was either leaving Sam somewhere he should not have brought him in the first place, or he was bringing Sam with him into the unknown. He drank the rest of Sam's coffee and hoped Bartlet's self-doubt would pass.
***
Josh leans in to kiss Matt as soon as the hotel door is closed behind them. He doesn't know what makes him do it right then, except that he doesn't want Matt to get the chance to speak first, because then they'd just start arguing again, and feeling Matt's warm breath on his lips is so much more of a straightforward way of figuring out where they stand.
Josh realizes he is less jaded than he believed himself to be he was when he thinks about what it means to run a candidate like Matt Santos, someone you believe in, and not just the guy who's going to win. He was lucky to get both in Bartlet, and he's not sure if that's something that happens twice. Josh has come to understand that he's here for Matt, not for the win. He's here for however long Matt is in the race.
Matt doesn't respond to the kiss, and Josh thinks it's the biggest mistake of his life, bigger than giving up everything for this campaign, until Matt is kissing him back and unknotting Josh's tie.
"Yes, Josh," Matt says, breaking the kiss, and then pulling Josh to him. "Yes."
This is something Josh can work with.