Bartlet glanced up as Leo entered the room.

“Excuse me, Mr. President?”

“I’ve just wrapped up my third meeting with Xander Harris and I’m still not sure if putting him in charge of a secret military branch is genius or insane.”

Leo shrugged. “Is there a difference?”

“Well, Buffy and Spike trust him, and when he’s not trying to be funny, he knows his stuff.”

“So they weren’t kidding about the thing.”

The President shook his head. “No, they weren’t. And to his credit, I think the kid was just nervous. It isn’t every day you’re escorted by an armed guard.”

Leo took a speculative glance around the Oval Office, his eyes landing decisively on the desk made infamous by a number of national addresses and Hollywood movies. Moreover, the man that stood behind the desk. “Yeah, I’m sure it was the armed guard that did it.”

The President released an appreciative, humorless laugh. “What can I do for you, Leo?”

The Chief of Staff drew in a breath. “Mr. President, I’ve got Toby waiting in his office right now.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got to tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

There was a long pause at that. And they simply looked at each other. Communicating the way only friends of so many years could communicate.

“We’ve got to tell him,” Leo said again.

“What happened?”

“He got curious when Hoynes volunteered to step in for Bill Trotter. And then more curious when he found out it was ‘cause Hoynes put a poll in the field.”

A sigh of resignation rolled off the President’s shoulders. “Yeah…”

“Now he’s camping in Killington, Vermont, with a quick stop—”

The President’s eyes flashed angrily at that. “Come on!”

“—in New Hampshire, and Toby’s not an idiot.”

“He—”

“None of them are.”

“He scheduled a trip to New Hampshire?”

Leo nodded. “High-tech corridor of the Northeast.”

“Yeah, thanks to who?”

“What does that matter right now?”

That was it. The President’s temper snapped, and he slammed the notebook he had been holding onto his desk.

Leo released a breath. “I think you got to see this as an opportunity.”

“To do what?”

“To gauge reaction.”

The President looked skeptical. “You think Toby’s reaction is going to be the same as the public’s?”

“I meant the staff.”

“Which will it be?”

A pause. “I’m sorry, sir?”

The President rose to his feet. “The staff’s reaction will be what?”

“I don’t know! Shock. Betrayal. Confusion. Concern about our future.”

Bartlet nodded.

“I don’t know,” Leo concluded.

There was another heavy pause, and the President sighed again in acknowledgment. “What do I tell him?”

“Everything.”

“Go get him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Chief of Staff turned and exited the office, and the President heaved another long sigh.

There was a god tearing up his city. A god tearing up his city, and now this.

“Now it starts.”

*~*~*

The bad thing about having ridiculously skilled writers on the communications staff was how quickly outside work fell as completely inadequate. While this was hardly a novel realization, it was rather disconcerting when the speech was scheduled to be delivered the next day.

Sam sat at his desk, Josh in the chair opposite him. They were each perusing a copy of the White House Correspondent’s Speech, and it wasn’t looking good.

“Hmmm…”

“Yes,” Josh agreed.

“Well…”

“You know what the problem is?”

“Yes.”

“It’s supposed to be funny.”

Sam nodded. “And yet…”

“It’s not.”

“No.”

There was a knock at the open door. The men glanced up in unison; Willow was there, offering a small wave and adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “Hey guys.”

“Hey,” came the simultaneous reply.

“Sweetie,” Sam said, rising to his feet with a sigh. “We’re not going to be able to go out tonight.”

A pout crossed her lips. “Why not?”

“These guys…”

“They forgot to bring the funny,” Josh quipped, bounding off his chair. “This is the Correspondent’s Dinner and the President has to be funny.”

“The President is funny,” the redhead replied with a frown.

“Yes, well, unfortunately that knowledge is limited to the three of us, Spike, and the First Family.” Josh heaved a sigh. “We have to work on this.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“It needs to be funny.” The Deputy Chief of Staff held up his copy of the speech disdainfully. “This is drastically unfunny.”

The other man’s eyes brightened suddenly, and he turned to his girlfriend with a broad smile. “Hey,” he said. “You’re funny.”

Willow shot him a skeptical look. “I am?”

“Sure. Josh?”

Josh glanced up. “Uh, yeah. Okay.”

“Well, ummm.” The redhead released a long, nervous breath. “O-okay. I’ll, umm, just go tell Donna that we’re gonna have to…not do the thing.”

At the mention of his assistant, Josh perked with interest. “No, no,” he said, grinning suddenly. The sort of look a sadist would give a butterfly before tearing off its wings. “I’ll go get her. You guys should get a head start on the funny.”

“Well, okay,” Willow replied. “Only, I should tell you—”

“RED!” A familiar British brogue shouted irritably. “What’s takin’ so bloody long?”

Josh shot the Witch a look that could freeze hell.

She smiled meekly. “Spike and Buffy are in the hallway.”

“Why?”

“Because our plans tonight involved taking Donna to see their place…finally. Seems someone has been keeping her past midnight every night for the past week.” The redhead glared disapprovingly. “And in order to see their place—”

“They couldn’t just, you know, wait for you guys at their house?”

There was a pause, and predictably, the peroxide vampire came into view, his hand curled around his mate’s. “Well, we could’ve done that, Curly,” Spike drawled, a familiar smirk playing across his lips. “But then I’d’ve missed out on this opportunity to annoy you to death.”

Josh heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How is it that you’re always here?” he demanded, turning to Sam. “He’s just…always here, isn’t he? Why do they keep letting you in?”

“I have a pass,” the vampire replied proudly.

“A pass?”

“’S a gratuitous ‘Annoy Josh Lyman’ pass. Wanna see?”

“Hey,” Sam said brightly before the Deputy Chief of Staff could get another word in. “Spike’s a funny guy.”

Josh’s eyes widened in protest. “No.”

Buffy sent a good-natured scowl in his direction. “Excuse me? Are you saying my husband has no sense of humor?”

“He’s your mate and I have no problem with his sense of humor, except that it’s, you know, imaginary.” He shook his head. “Sam, we can’t just invite everyone to—”

“Spike knows the President. They’re close. He knows his sense of humor.”

The vampire’s brows arched appraisingly. “What’s this, now?”

“We’re all close with the President. That doesn’t meant we should invite a two hundred year old dead British guy to write our speeches!”

Buffy’s eyes widened proudly. “You want Spike to help with a thing?”

“Oi. Don’ age me up, mate. Have a few good decades to go before I reach two hundred.”

“You can, too,” the Deputy Communications Director offered, his eyes on Buffy. “Help with the thing, I mean.”

“Sam!”

“What? She’s funny.”

“We can’t just—”

“These guys forgot to bring the funny to a speech the President’s going to give tomorrow,” Willow explained. “Sam and Josh are rallying up people to help bring the funny.”

Spike beamed. “Aww. An’ you two thought of us. ‘m touched. Really.”

Josh glared at him. “I keep meaning to kill you.”

“You keep meanin’ to try.”

“Josh is a wuss,” the redhead said. “He gets queasy when he gets a papercut.”

“Willow!”

“What? Buffy looked about ready to electrocute you for even play-threatening her mate.”

The Slayer glanced down at that in apology. “Sorry. I’m working on fixing that.”

“Fixing it?”

“You know…not killing people for giving Spike a dirty look.”

Josh just stared at her for a second, then shook his head again. “Fine. Whatever. They can stay.”

“Good,” the vampire retorted. “’Cause I was waitin’ for your permission.”

There was a beat and a long sigh. “I’m gonna go get Donna.”

*~*~*

“Toby?”

“Yeah.”

Josh drew in a breath and entered his colleague’s office, rubbing his brow in a desperate attempt to wane away the headache that was threatening to consume him whole. “Sam and I are going to stay and punch up some of the jokes from the Correspondent’s Dinner. And when I say Sam and I, I mean Sam, myself, and a small troupe of traveling freak-like stragglers that refuse to go back to California.”

“Okay.”

“Have you seen it?”

“The thing?”

“Yeah.”

Toby nodded. “Yeah, I read it.”

“They forgot the funny.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna stay?”

The older man heaved out a sigh. “Where are you going to be?”

“We’ll find a place.”

Leo suddenly appeared, his expression grim but determined. And there was a beat in Toby’s eyes. Something was about to happen.

Something that Josh had not been told about.

The Communications Director nodded. “I’ll hook up with you in a bit.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Leo said.

“Okay.” A pause. “Hey, did the President meet with the guy?”

“Buffy and Spike’s friend, Xander Harris?”

Josh nodded. “Yeah.”

Leo gave him a look. “Xander Harris, whom you spent two weeks with and I have yet to meet, yet somehow I know his name and you don’t?”

The Deputy shrugged. “I’m supposed to know stuff?”

The Chief of Staff chuckled wryly. “Go away now.”

“Okay.”

Josh turned obediently and prowled toward the bullpen, his mind automatically returning to the speech. He would have missed Donna had he not caught a whiff of her usual perfume. That perfume was hard to miss.

Plus, she spoke.

“Hello.”

He turned obediently to follow her, a smile tickling his lips. “How you doing?”

Her response was cold and airy. “I’m doing fine.”

“Did you get the flowers?”

“Yes, I did.”

Josh’s grin broadened. “Did you like ‘em?”

“They were very pretty,” she replied in kind, otherwise wanting obviously nothing to do with him.

“Do you know why I sent them?”

“I know why you think you sent them.”

“It’s our anniversary.”

The blonde met his eyes at that, her own flashing angrily. “No, it’s not.”

Josh was not dismayed. He shrugged and replied, “I’m the sort of guy who remembers those things.”

“No,” Donna retorted, “you’re the sort of guy who sends a woman flowers to be mean. You’re really the only person I’ve ever met who can do that.”

He shrugged. “I’m quite something.”

“Yes.”

“I sent them to mark an occasion—”

A sigh heaved through her body. “Are we really gonna do this every year?”

“—for I am a man of occasion.”

She scowled. “I started working for you in February. This is April, and you’re an idiot.”

“Well, you started working for me once in February and then you stopped for a while.”

“Yes!”

Josh went on, unhampered by her bad temperament. “Then you started working for me again in April. That’s the one I choose to celebrate, because it’s the only one where you started working for me and it wasn’t followed by your not working but rather going back to your boyfriend, and how, in comparison to that and him, you can call me mean is simply another in a long series of—”

They had reached the bullpen, now. Her desk to be exact, and Donna had about run out of what little patience she had begun the day with. She whirled around, her eyes flashing, and gave him a look that stated in plain terms her desire to see his head on a pike. “Oh, shut up! Honest to God, do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?”

“No, can’t say that’s ever happened.” He paused. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I’m going with Willow and Sam to see Spike and Buffy’s place.”

Josh shook his head. “No, no. You’re not so much doing that as you are not doing that.”

“What? Why?”

“We need help with the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing for tomorrow. These guys forgot to bring the funny.”

Donna scowled. “Well, presently, I’m going to choose to care less about that than I do about other things.”

He heaved a sigh and prowled forward. “You know what, Ado Annie, I sent you flowers! I think what you’re trying to say is, ‘Why, thank you, Josh! They’re beautiful! How very thoughtful of you. Not many bosses would have been that thoughtful...’”

“Really? 'Cause what I think I was trying to say was ‘Shove it!’”

“Okay, well, then I guessed wrong.”

“Why aren’t you letting me go? You have Ed, Larry and Ainsley to do this thing.”

“Yes, well, Sam’s volunteered himself, then Willow and the two lovebirds decided to sign up for the ride. And Ainsley left to do something with her alma mater. So really, you’re looking at helping us with this or going over to Buffy and Spike’s by yourself.”

A desperate look crossed her face. “And you did nothing to talk them out of it?”

“Donna, it’s me and Spike. You think I’m putting up with him because I want to?”

“Spike’s a nicer guy than you are sometimes.”

“The key word there is ‘sometimes.’”

“I’m willing to bet that Spike would never send a girl flowers to be an ass.”

“Well, Spike’s also a pussy-whipped freak with a girlfriend who’d fry him if he ever looked at another woman.”

“And he has super hearing.”

“Donna—”

“I’ve waited to go over there for a week, Joshua! You haven’t let me out since the filibuster.”

“Well, look, you work for the President. These things come up.”

Donna glared at him. “I think you deleted the funny on purpose.”

“Yeah, because I have that kind of time.”

A long tremor ran through her body as she packed up her things to head down to Sam’s office. “You know, there are times, when to put it quite simply, I hate your breathing guts.”

She was already past him before he got another word out.

“So the flowers really did the trick, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” she called back.

Josh wet his lips. “Perfect. Just perfect.”

There was utterly no way the night could get any worse. He was convinced of it.

No way.

*~*~*

Leo and Toby were waiting outside the Oval, and the awkwardness between them could fill the English Channel.

“Did you see the draft for the Correspondents’ Dinner?” the Chief of Staff asked after a long silence.

There was a beat. “Yeah.”

“It’s not funny,” he continued.

“Sam’s going to work on it.”

Another brief pause. Then Leo heaved a sigh.

“Toby,” he said seriously, “take it easy in there, okay?”

The door to the Oval suddenly opened, and Charlie appeared. His face was somber.

“You can go in,” he said.

The Chief of Staff and the Communications Director walked the familiar ten feet through the door. The President was at the other side of the room when they entered, preparing a drink for himself.

“Good evening, Mr. President,” Toby said.

“Hey, Toby. You want a drink?”

“No, thank you, sir. I'm fine.”

The President leveled their gazes. “Have a drink with me,” he said again.

There was no denying the man when he issued statements like that.

“Sure.”

“Bourbon, no ice,” the President continued, walking across the office to hand Toby his drink.

“Thank you.”

Bartlet drew in a breath. “You know what I just found out recently? To be called "bourbon," it has to come from Kentucky. Otherwise it’s called sour mash. An Algerian-born terrorist named Reda Nessam was arrested at the Canadian border yesterday with a U-Haul containing ten 2-ounce jars filled with nitroglycerin.”

The Communications Director quirked his head. “And they don’t allow that kind of thing at Yosemite?”

“No. Anyway, on advice from State and Intelligence, I closed the embassies in Tanzania and Brussels.”

“What about the FAA?”

Toby found it odd that Leo hadn’t said a word, but he knew this was serious. The past few days had been spent thinking of nothing but what a meeting in this office would mean with the information he had uncovered since the filibuster. His heart was thundering, though he would never admit it. He was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.

And Leo wasn’t speaking.

“They want me to order the airports, heighten security, but it’s a holiday weekend.” The President shrugged. “I don’t know. Toby, I got to tell you something…”

“Does the FAA have to present evidence of a credible theory?”

Suddenly, postponing that inevitable something sounded like a good idea.

“Yeah.”

“How do they do that?”

“I don’t know. They do it…”

“Is there…excuse me, sir. Is there a time frame?”

The President nodded, and drew in a breath. “About an hour.” A whispered breath of a pause, and here it came. The thing he’d been dreading for six days. The thing he didn’t know, but was about to. Here it came. “Toby, around ten years ago, for a period of a few months, I was feeling run down and I had a pain in my leg. They both eventually subsided, but then eight years ago, the pain came back, as well as numbness. My vision would be blurry sometimes and I’d get dizzy. During an eye exam, the doctor detected abnormal pupil responses and ordered an MRI. The radiologist found plaque on my brain and spine. I have a relapsing-remitting course of MS.”

The room went cold.

He’d just said it.

A relapsing-remitting course of MS. The President of the United States.

In a flash, Toby saw years of his political life dissolve. Saw the administration he’d slaved for over the past three years blunder into a pillar of smoke. And the President had said it as though he was commenting on the weather. A relapsing-remitting course of MS.

How long he remained silent, he didn’t know. Only that his brain assured him that he had heard wrong, even though he knew that was impossible.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

President Bartlet did not look away. Did not flinch. Did not apologize, or even appear apologetic. Instead, he kept his gaze level, and said slowly, “I have Multiple Sclerosis, Toby.”

Ten years. A disease.

Multiple Sclerosis. A disease the President had never mentioned. A disease the President had concealed from the public. A disease that had not existed in the man before now. Before this moment.

And Toby’s world ceased to exist.

*~*~*

“I’d like to get it in writing that Josh owes me one day off,” Donna said as she took her seat in the Roosevelt Room. Larry had just come back in with Chinese that Sam had ordered, and Buffy was picking at an egg roll that Spike had just dipped in duck sauce.

“I don’t owe you a day off.”

“A week has gone by since you said you’d let me go to Spike and Buffy’s new place.”

“It’s been six days, and you work for me, Mr. Scrooge.”

“You mean the other guy,” Sam corrected, popping a bit of a crab ragoon in his mouth.

“What?”

“Scrooge is you in this scenario. Donna’s the other guy.”

Josh studied him for a minute. “Yeah, I don’t want you to talk unless it’s to say that I’m right and she’s wrong.”

Donna snickered into what she was writing, and shook her head.

“What are you doing?” her boss asked her a minute later.

“Writing up the agreement that says I get a day off.”

“You’re free to have as many days off as you like. That getting money thing, though, is liable to go away.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I'm jotting down some go-tos in case a joke doesn't work. ‘I haven't seen an audience this dead since...’ That kind of thing.”

“You think the President’s gonna get heckled?”

“No, but I've read the speech and I think you'd be wise to have some dead audience metaphors in your pocket.”

“Question,” Spike drawled, not before shoving a fork-full of noodles in his mouth. “’F the blokes that drafted this thing up are so bloody awful, how’d they get the gig of, well, draftin’ this thing up?”

“That’s a really good question,” Sam replied.

“Yeh.”

“And I’d tell you, but I think it’s better for the inquisitive mind to research this sort’ve thing on its own.”

“Sam was told not to do it,” Willow said.

“You just ruined my fun there,” her boyfriend pouted.

“I can really live with that.”

“Told not to?” Buffy arched a brow. “Why?”

“Well, it was supposed to be funny and he’s had, you know, actual work to do. Not excluding writing three speeches in the past two weeks, let alone that cover-up for Glory’s mess at the pollster place.” The redhead patted Sam’s hand in encouragement. “There’s just too much work in my man’s life.”

Spike rolled his eyes and tossed Josh a pointed glare. “The next time you accuse me an’ the Slayer of bein’ too nauseatingly cutesy, jus’ conjure up that image an’ you should be okay right quick.”

“Yeah, problem is, I like Sam and Willow.”

“Hey!” Buffy frowned.

“And Buffy. You, on the other hand…not so much.”

“But that’s okay,” Donna said. “Because Josh is an ass.”

The Deputy Chief of Staff shook his head good-naturedly. “Okay,” he said decisively. “Okay, here we go.” He turned his eyes to the proffered text before him. “‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very happy to be here. And I want to thank the White House Correspondents Association for inviting me. I expect I'll be stuck here tonight with my fair share of verbal harpoons. I don't mind, just don't stick me…with…the…dinner check.’” He stared at the text for a moment in awe. “Wow.”

“And then it says here, ‘Allow for laughter,’” Donna pointed.

“Yeah, well, unless we give that instruction to the audience I don't think it's going to be a problem.”

“I know,” Sam agreed, “it's like he's playing Grossinger's.”

Buffy frowned and read on. “‘I know some of you are troubled by my frequent use of Latin references. Well, all I can say is 'no te…’ Honey, what’s that word?”

“Preocupus,” Spike told her, equally unimpressed. “Tell me these blokes weren’t handed an actual check for this.”

“The joke there is that it’s in Spanish,” Larry provided.

Spike glanced up. “Yeh, I’ve been meanin’ to ask who the hell you are.”

“Larry.”

“An’ the other?”

“Ed,” the other man said, waving a bit. “But you can call me Larry.”

The vampire paused. “Okay…”

“I’m just saying, we answer to both.”

Spike stared at them a minute longer, then shook his head. He shifted slightly in his seat and glanced back at the speech that he was sharing with his mate. “Yeh, well, that pun’s about as funny as an axe through your head would be…only not as much…so get rid of it.”

“Spanish is kind of like Latin,” Ed said.

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed dryly. “Only that it’s really not.”

Willow shot her a suspicious glance. “How would you know?”

The Slayer grinned. “Spike sometimes talks dirty Latin to me.”

“Gets her all hot,” her mate agreed, pulling her closer to him.

“And that’s probably where you’ll want your first dead audience joke,” Donna added.

Josh rolled his eyes. “We’re not gonna need a dead audience joke.”

The Witch shook her head, turning to Donna quickly in hopes of cutting off that particular conversation before it got out of hand and someone threw a chair. “Hey. You got flowers. Is it your birthday?”

The blonde scowled. “Did he ask you to say that?”

“Who?”

“The flowers are from me,” Josh said.

“For her birthday?”

The Deputy Chief of Staff shook his head. “Our anniversary.”

“Not our anniversary,” Donna snapped.

“Yeh,” Spike said, frowning. “Thought you two shagged in December or sometime ‘round the holidays. We were home well before April.”

The room froze.

Buffy elbowed him harshly.

“Ow!”

“Ixnay on the aggedshay.”

“Oh God.” Donna’s head fell into her waiting hands.

“An’ when I said shagged,” Spike attempted to rectify quickly, “I mean…not shagged.”

“Yeah, because…yeah.”

Josh shook his head. “Donna doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“I wouldn’t either, ‘f I were her.”

Buffy elbowed her mate again.

“Oi, luv! Watch it! You got those god’s arms. Not a fair match.”

Sam and Josh threw Ed and Larry an identical look of horror, but they were musing over the text and not paying the room much attention.

“You have about as much tact as Anya in heat,” the Slayer hissed.

“The only bird I wanna think of in heat is the one I’m holdin’.”

“Of course you meant the anniversary,” Willow said quickly. “And not the…other thing.”

Sam nodded. “A few years ago, Donna's boyfriend broke up with her so she started working for Josh. But then, the boyfriend told her to come back, and she did. And then they broke up, and she came back to work.”

Donna glared at him.

The Deputy Communications Director frowned. “I thought you meant you didn’t want to talk about it.” He paused. “I’m a spokesman. It’s in my blood.”

Ed and Larry were still mulling over the speech. “And I’d also like to thank our host, Bill Maher…” the former began.

“We’re not making fun of the host,” Sam said.

Buffy released a steady breath and broke away from where she and Spike had practically been having mind sex through the dirty looks he was sending her. “Who are we making fun of?”

“Republicans!” the room shouted back.

And then, as if divinely inspired, Sam began speaking in a voice that sounded only vaguely like a Bartlet impersonation. “I only wish the Speaker were here tonight, but he's held up in negotiations on the Hill. He's demanding his latest pre-nup include a line item veto?”

“There it is!” Josh yelped excitedly.

“All right! Two groups. You guys over there…” Sam motioned to Donna, the annoying affectionate blonde couple, and the Deputy Chief of Staff. Then he nodded to his girlfriend, Ed and Larry. “We’ll stay over here.”

“I have to be in Spike’s group?” Josh whined.

“Yeah,” Donna retorted. “We’re gonna make you sit by him and everything.”

“I have cooties, too,” the vampire sneered.

“Sexy cooties,” Buffy agreed, snuggling up to him.

“Okay, yeah.” Josh blinked. “In order for us to do this, you two are gonna have to not do that quite so much.”

“Spike’s a man that knows how to send flowers,” Donna muttered.

The Slayer grinned and leaned back in his arms. “Spike’s a man that can do pretty much anything.”

Her mate nuzzled her throat affectionately. “We’re gonna need to find a broom-closet soon.”

“Only now we’re doing this,” Josh said, smacking the speech against the table. “Someone start being funny.”

*~*~*

A half hour later, and there was little to go on.

“You know,” Willow said, looking up from her books. “We should call Xander.”

“Xander?” Larry asked.

“Xander’s a funny guy.”

“Yeh,” Spike drawled. “Jeff Foxworthy funny. Not funny for a bleedin’ political speech.”

The redhead frowned. “Give Xander a little credit. He’s much better than Foxworthy.”

“And I’m pretty sure he votes Democrat,” Buffy added.

The vampire’s brows perked. “’S there anyone in this room that doesn’t?”

She shrugged. “I was just saying. You know…now that he knows the difference between the parties and is working for the President.”

Josh strutted back into the room from where he had been checking in on Toby. The Communications Director hadn’t come out of the Oval all night, and the two teams that Sam had designated—that were now back into one—had a friendly bet on who could write a joke that would make him laugh.

So far, they had nothing to show for their efforts.

“All right,” Josh said. “Here’s a joke based on the premise that the party afterwards is hard to get into and that the President is the Commander-In-Chief. ‘I hear the Bloomberg party is gonna be hard to get into this year but I’m not worried. I’m going to the party with the 82nd Airborne.’”

There was a brief pause.

“And then the President says, ‘Wow, I haven’t heard a room this quiet since we lost the signal on Galileo,’” Donna snipped.

Her boss shrugged. “Or, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen my staff update their resumes this quickly since the last time I tanked at the Correspondents' Dinner!’”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Josh.”

“Yeah?”

“When you yell, you make it harder for people to find the funny.”

He shot her a look. “Hey, who gave you those flowers on your desk?”

“A mean man who can’t read a calendar.”

Spike snickered appreciatively. Josh shook his head and motioned for Sam to join him in the corner.

“We’re doing fine,” the Deputy Communications Director assured him automatically. “Toby’s gonna come in here and nail it. This is his thing.”

Josh nodded. “Yeah. Cut the Speaker joke, okay? Mrs. Bartlet might not be there.”

“Okay.”

The Deputy Chief of Staff nodded again. “All right, so uh…we’re gonna be fine, here.”

“No! We’re doing great.” Sam turned back to the room. “We’re doing great, everybody, right?”

Larry nodded and looked up. “Sam, we’ve got one here but it involves a John Wayne impersonation and a sock puppet.”

Spike chuckled richly, shaking his head. “How about a banana an’ a knock-knock joke?”

Sam turned back to Josh in dismay. “Yeah, we’re eating it.”

*~*~*

“We need jokes about the staff,” Sam said.

They had officially been going at this for an hour and a half.

“Let’s start with you,” Buffy offered. “I would suggest someone else, but I have a feeling that Spike would rather save all his zingers for Josh.”

“Better bloody believe it,” her mate agreed.

Sam smiled appreciatively. “Problem is, there aren’t many jokes you can make about me.”

“How about this?” Donna said quickly. “Um, ‘Knock knock.’ ‘Who’s there? ‘Sam and his prostitute friend.’”

The room burst into quiet chuckles.

“She took my knock-knock joke idea,” Spike said with a grin.

“Or better yet,” Donna continued. “‘Sorry I’m late. I had to pick up my date, and her father told me to get her home by ten because tonight’s a school night.”

The room laughed louder.

Sam and Willow looked wounded. “See,” the former said, “I think that was a bit of misdirected anger there.”

The blonde shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”

The Deputy Communications Director fired her a challenging glance and rose to the bait. “Well, in that case, Willow, you know why I got you flowers in April instead of February? 'Cause you ditched me the first time around to go back to the guy who ditched you the first time around only to have him ditch you the second time around.”

Donna glared at him and smacked Josh upside the head.

“Ow!” her boss whined. “What the hell? That was him!”

“He was being you!”

“Well, in fairness, I think everybody should have a turn.” Josh rose to his feet and wiped tiredly at his eyes. “Sam, is there anything we can pull, anything funny we can recycle?”

“Quittin’ already?” Spike demanded. “We were about to go into hour eight.”

“Two,” Buffy corrected dryly. “But who’s counting?”

Their cynicism went ignored. Sam nodded. “Yeah, pull something I wrote from October called ‘Government-wide Accountability for Merit System Principles.’”

“That one was a barn-burner, was it?” Josh asked, but he was out the door before Sam could reply.

Donna released a sigh and turned to the Deputy Communications Director. “Do you have any idea how much grief I took from him when I came back?”

“How much?”

“None. I walked in the door. He said, ‘Thank God. There's a pile of stuff on the desk.’ This is his way. He's just going to snark me every April. Prince of passive-aggressive behavior.”

Sam licked his lips. “What does ‘snark’ mean?”

Spike stared at him dully. “Yeh, you deserve your job.”

“I don’t know,” Donna continued, “but he’s doing it.”

*~*~*

Fifteen minutes later, Josh wasn’t back, and Willow and Sam had just reentered the room from a long trip to the Mess to get coffee.

“You know,” Buffy murmured, glancing up from the speech. She and Spike had relocated to a corner of the room and were seated on the floor. She was curled in her mate’s arms, her back pressed against his chest, his arms around her middle. “I know this isn’t what we had planned tonight, but I’m actually having fun.”

She felt him smile behind her, and he pressed a kiss to the claim mark on her throat. “Me too, kitten,” he replied softly.

“Really?”

“Well, no, but I’m glad you’re havin’ fun.”

“You’re not having any fun?”

“I’m havin’ fun.”

“Liar.”

“I’m with you. I’m makin’ fun of Curly. I get to laugh at your government.” He kissed the claim mark again. “Plus, you’ve been sittin’ on my…happy place for a while now.”

Buffy grinned and wiggled intentionally. “I noticed that.”

“We really need to find a broom-closet.”

“Yeah.” Her finger traced a line of reprehensible text and frowned. “Could you make a Republican joke out of this and throw in a funny Latin pun?”

“I could, but I don’ care very much.”

“Spike…” She purred her contentment and snuggled further into him. “Really…thanks.” A pause. “You planned this thing tonight to…get my mind off things. And I know it didn’t go as you wanted, but it’s working.” She sighed. “This is the best night I’ve had all week.”

“’m glad, sweetling.” He brushed a kiss against the top of her head. “So glad.”

*~*~*

Donna went to drag Josh back to the Roosevelt Room after he didn’t return for twenty minutes. Predictably, she found him standing precariously on a chair, reaching for a notebook that rested at the top of his incredibly overloaded bookcase.

He just never learned.

“Josh.”

“Oh!”

And that was that. He was avalanched by a number of books and binders; miraculously, though, didn’t follow them over. Rather, he stood on his chair and watched helplessly as they fell to the floor.

“Well,” he said with a huff. “That was predictable.”

“Yes.”

He stepped down from the chair and started picking up his mess. “I’m trying to find that speech Sam said.”

“You know, we keep them on computer.”

“Well, yeah, sure, I suppose.”

“Except you don’t know how to use a computer.” Donna smirked and knelt down across from him, gathering the notebooks that had spilled toward the door.

“Right,” he agreed.

“Ah, Josh, Josh, Josh.”

“Yes?”

“Joshua, Josh, Josh.”

He flashed her a confused smile. “What the hell is happening now?”

“You feel, I believe, because you’re quite addle-minded, that this job was my second choice.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Hey, I’m just grateful we were your last choice.”

“I’m gonna give you a little gift right now, which you don’t deserve,” she continued.

Josh drew a sly smile. “Donna, if you’ve got your old Catholic-school uniform on under there, don’t get me wrong, I applaud the thought, but—”

She shifted uncomfortably and flushed. Damn Spike for making that remark earlier. Damn Josh for being able to blow right over it. Damn them all. “Okay, what I need is for you to stop being like, you, for a second.”

“Okay.”

“When I came back, you remember I had a bandage on my ankle?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you I slipped on the ice on the front walk?”

“Yeah. You know why? ‘Cause you didn’t put down the kitty litter.”

She paused. “I was actually in a car accident.”

Josh’s face fell slack. “You were in a car accident?”

“It was—”

“Seriously, you were in an accident?”

“It was no big deal.”

“You told me it was a late thaw.”

She smiled. He remembered. “Yes. I did. Anyway, they took me to the hospital and I called him and he came down to get me and on the way he stopped and met some friends of his for a beer.”

There was a disbelieving beat. “He stopped on the way to the hospital for a beer?”

Donna nodded. “Yes. And that’s why I left him. Which was the point of my telling you this. I left him. So stop remembering that. What I remember is that you took me back when you had absolutely no reason to trust me again, and you didn’t make fun of me or him, and you had every reason to.”

“Donna—”

She sighed. “You’re gonna make fun of him now, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“‘Cause that’s why I didn’t tell you in the first place.”

“I’m not gonna make fun of him.”

“Good.”

That promise lasted all of half a second. “But just what kind of a dumbkes were you—”

“He was supposed to meet some of his friends. He stopped on the way to tell them that he couldn’t.”

“And had a beer?”

“Does this make you feel superior?”

Josh looked away and opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it.

“Yes,” she said for him. “You are better than my old boyfriend.”

He shot her a smile, then rose to his feet and began for the door. “I’m just sayin’ if you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for a beer.”

Donna shot up at that. “If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights. Thanks for taking me back.” She strode past him at that, flashing him a smile. “Oh, and the flowers are beautiful.”

Josh just stood in the doorway for a minute and stared after her.

That gorge that stood between them had closed just a bit. And for a minute, they could both pretend that things were normal.

If only for a minute.

*~*~*

Toby left the Oval Office without closing the door behind him. His body was numb, his throat was sore from shouting, his nerves wracked from the numerous lines he’d crossed. The knowledge he bore weighing him down.

For as often as he lost his temper, he had never feared losing his job like he had tonight.

What made it worse, he didn’t even know if he cared anymore.

There were voices coming from the Roosevelt Room. Voices and the rich sound of laughter. He felt like an alien as he walked through the doors. Felt like a man who had been robbed of his ignorance. He was Plato after the light. And he was sitting in a room full of laughing fools that resided in their cave.

“That was…I think that’s a good one,” Josh was saying.

“You’re welcome,” Spike shot back.

“It was totally not your idea, but let’s not go there.”

“Toby!” Sam yelled good-naturedly when he saw him.

“Toby!” Donna echoed.

“We’re dying here,” Josh said. “What do you got?”

Ed had picked up something and was reading off a loose sheet of paper. “Um, okay. So, the President was asked to pick tonight’s menu and he says, ‘Oh, just serve anything you want except lame duck.’”

“Toby,” Larry said, “listen to this.”

Toby nodded weakly. “Okay.”

“So the President says, ‘I know times are tough. The NASDAQ just filed for not-for-profit status.’”

“Toby.” Sam tossed Toby one of his bouncy balls, and he caught it with ease.

The joke suggestions continued around him.

And the President still had Multiple Sclerosis.

“Okay, uh, you have to try and imagine that the President is saying it.” Josh approached him with a Joshish smile on his face. Blissful. Ignorant. Happy. “Tell me if you think this is funny.”

Unchanged. They had no idea what had happened.

They had no idea that the roof was about to crash down on them.

And that it had nothing to do with gods or vampires, and everything to do with what they were doing right now.

Right now.

Toby drew in a breath and tossed his bouncy ball down the table. It landed in Spike’s hand.

Their eyes met. And something happened.

Two worlds.

And the sky was falling.


TBC