Title: Sam's Terrible, horrible, no-good week.
Author: Robyn (quincy@global.co.za)
Disclaimer: Once upon a time there were a bunch of highly entertaining
characters that belonged to me in no way, shape or form. Which is naturally
extremely depressing for me.
Summary: Read the title, man.
Warnings: Err... One f-word.
Archiving: Yes.
Notes: Well... There have been a huge number of hijack fics lately, not
one
of which involved Sam!! So here's one. The title comes from something I read
way back when, that I don't remember at all.
It just had not been Sam's week. He had screwed up two sort-of-important
meetings, he'd slept for all of four hours in the last two days, Cathy was
angry with him for not leaving her a morning doughnut twice in a row,
Mallory had fought with him about Laurie, Laurie had yelled at him about
nothing specific as far as he knew, Leo was mad at him because he'd put
Mallory in a bad mood, Josh was mad at him because Leo had been put in a bad
mood by Mallory's bad mood and had taken it out on him and cancelled his day
off, and God only knew why Toby was mad at him, but he was. As usual. He'd
even managed to upset his mother by... delaying... her birthday phone call.
Nobody had noticed the way he had neatly secured two very important votes
for an upcoming bill, or the way he had averted a possible media crisis
involving Zoey, or how brilliant his speech for the President was, or how he
had *voluntarily* given up his off-day to help with yet another emergency,
and he doubted anyone even recognized the fact that he was the one that had
arranged dinner for everyone every night of the week. If it hadn't been for
him, they would have starved to death, but did they care? Noooooo. The only
person in the universe that wasn't furious with him right now was -
"CJ! Hi. You have no idea how happy I am too see you, everyone's so upset
with me and I don't know why, I am so desperate for a friendly face. Uh..."
Sam eyed CJ cautiously. "Are... Are you okay? I... You look a little...
puffy."
CJ glared at Sam through two extremely swollen eyes, and, speaking through
extremely swollen lips while gently scratching one extremely swollen cheek,
she said, "I have to do the briefing like this. I spent four hours in the
emergency room last night."
Sam's eyes widened. "My God! That's awful! What happened?"
"There were oysters in the seafood gumbo last night, weren't there,
Sam?"
Sam swallowed, sensing another incensed being in his very near future. "Uh,
well, yes."
"I'm allergic to oysters, Sam."
"I, oh, I didn't know that," Sam said vaguely, searching for a quick
exit.
"You didn't think maybe you should mention the oysters in the gumbo,
Sam?"
"Well, shouldn't, um, why didn't you taste them?"
"I may have, Sam. The thing is, I don't really know what oysters taste
like.
Know why? Because I never eat them. Know why?"
"Because you're allergic to them?" Sam whispered.
"Because I'm allergic to them," CJ confirmed.
Sam faltered, looked around. "Ha. Imagine, immm, im, uh, imagine that. I,
uh, uh, I need, I have to go, I have a thing."
"You'll pay for this, Sam!" CJ shouted at Sam's rapidly retreating
back.
Then, to herself, she repeated menacingly, "Oh yes. You will pay."
Sam sat in his office with his head on his desk, one fisted hand thumping
his chair in time to his soft singing: "Nobody loves (thump) me, everybody
hates (thump) me, think I'm gonna eat (thump) some (thump) worms
(thump)..."
"Sam?" Charlie leaned into the room, a hesitant half-smile on his
face.
"Big ones, little ones, fat ones, squishy ones... Think I'm gonna eat some
worms," Sam continued sadly. Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Charlie blinked. "Yeah. Uh, Sam?"
Sam lifted his head. "Charlie."
"You're wanted in the Oval Office, Sam." Charlie gave him a friendly
smile
and left.
Sam looked at his watch. "Damn! I'm late!" He leapt up and caught up
with
Charlie in the corridor, falling into step beside him. "So, Charlie,"
he
said, breathing deeply to stop himself panicking. He'd been late before, no
big deal. "Why'd they send you to get me?"
"I'm the only one that's not mad at you," Charlie explained
apologetically.
"Except for the President, and he's not too happy that you're late."
Sam winced, then laughed. "I'm surprised you're not angry with me too,
Charlie. You could probably have blamed your fight with Zoey on me, if you
tried hard enough."
Charlie's expression hardened. "You're the one that told her I said that?
Jeez, Sam!" He shook his head disgustedly and sped up, leaving Sam trailing
after him, bewildered.
"No, that was Josh," Sam said weakly, and groaned. "Ohhhhhhh,
thank God it's
Friday."
"Sorry I'm late," Sam muttered, acutely aware of everyone watching at
him as
he crossed the room to an empty chair and sat down next to Josh, who
pointedly moved away slightly. He glanced around, then stared fixedly at his
hands when CJ glared at him.
"If you had been on time," the President said emphatically, "you
would have
known that we were discussing a candidate for the Finland thing."
"Sir, I've said this before, they should come to us. I don't see why we
have
to send one of our staff to Finland to discuss something as trivial as them
wondering whether to broadcast American baseball. Why do they even need our
input, anyway? It's a complete waste of time!" Sam abruptly stopped
talking,
feeling a definite sinking sensation at the President's expression.
"I happen to like Finland," said POTUS, "and if they want one of
us over
there, I'm inclined to co-operate."
"But... why?" Sam had to ask. This was quite a turnaround from the
President's view the previous day.
"Because I'm the President, and I say so." There was a definite hint
of
sulkiness to his reply. "Anyway, we were in the process of nominating
you."
Sam twitched. "I'm pretty busy, sir-"
"I can cover for you," Toby assured him, in a not-very-nice way.
"And from what I hear, it might be better if you left for a bit, Sam,"
POTUS
pointed out kindly.
Sam sagged, unable to deny that POTUS had a point. "Yes, sir," he
sighed.
"I'll go pack."
Four hours later, in the first-class section of a plane to Finland, Sam
found himself in the middle seat, a beautiful woman on one side, and a nun
on the other. Unfortunately, the nun was the one that chose to speak to him.
"Excuse me, young man," she said, as though she were reading from a
script,
"Have you found God?"
Helpless in the face of possible humour, no matter how bad, Sam delivered
the punchline to a joke he'd heard hundreds of times before. "Why - is he
lost?"
The nun gave him a shocked look, and with a huffy, "Well, I never!"
she
turned her attention to the in-flight movie, muttering about sinners and
patience and prayer and eternal damnation.
The woman sitting on his other side chuckled. "That was mean."
"I couldn't help myself," Sam said truthfully. "What's a nun
doing in first
class, anyway?"
The woman raised a delicate eyebrow. "God provides?"
Sam grinned. "Sam Seabourn," he said, extending a hand.
"Jennifer Clarke," said the woman, accepting it with a smile.
Sam smiled back. Finally, something was going right!
"So you work in politics?" Jennifer asked.
"Yeah," replied Sam, idly watching a weird-looking guy as he paced
back and
forth for no ascertainable reason. For some reason, Sam found himself
thinking of him as 'Skippy'. "How about you?"
"Oh, I'm a minor character that's only here to entertain you on your
flight,
and as such I do not require character development such as a career."
Sam blinked. "Pardon?"
"I'm an aerobics instructor," she said, looking rather embarrassed.
The only thing Sam could think of to say was an eloquent, "Oh." His
attention wandered back to Skippy, who was holding a hand to his head.
"Voices, I don't hear the voices," said Skippy. Sam frowned. Suddenly
Skippy
produced a gun and yelled, "This is a hijack!"
Sam's face fell. "Oh, great." It just wasn't his week.
"Everyone just stay put and shut up and nobody gets hurt!" Skippy
said.
Naturally, this caused everyone to start screaming and waving their arms
around.
"Eek!" cried Jennifer, joining in. "Eek, eek."
"Shh!" Sam hissed, pulling out his cellphone and dialing a number.
"Shut
up!"
Jennifer shut up long enough to give him a hurt look. "How rude," she
sniffed, adding another "eek" for good measure.
Toby rubbed his eyes wearily. Sam had been busier than he'd thought; it was
proving rather difficult to cover for him and still get all his own work
done. And, there, he thought as his phone rang. How typical. Just as he was
getting into the groove...
"What?" he snapped into the receiver, hoping to make whoever was on
the
other end tremble with fear and that sort of thing.
"Toby," he heard Sam whisper.
Toby waited a moment, then repeated, "What?" The only response
forthcoming
was a large number of people doing a great deal of screaming.
"Yeah, funny," he muttered, hanging up.
Sam gave his phone an astonished look. Toby had hung up! The bastard! That
wasn't how it was supposed to work! He was supposed to realize that
something was drastically wrong, figure out that his deputy was in trouble,
and arrange a daring rescue by the best swat team in the country! Failing
that, he mused, there was probably a hero of some sort on board that would -
His train of thought was interrupted by another man with a gun - Sam
couldn't help thinking of him as Bubba - joining Skippy and whispering
something. Skippy whispered back. The man whispered again, louder. Skippy
said, "Screw you, you son of a bitch!" Bubba whispered emphatically
for a
minute or so, Skippy nodded, Bubba left.
Sam watched this exchange in interested silence, then surreptitiously picked
up his phone again and hit speed dial.
"Joshua Lyman." Josh cradled the phone on his shoulder, using his
hands to
gently place a Jack of Diamonds on the house of cards he was building.
"Hello?"
He heard a slightly muffled voice saying, "...and I represent the Golf Ball
Liberation front! My comrades and I will be holding this plane hostage for
as long as it takes for your government to realize that what people do to
golf balls is just plain wrong, and outlaw the use of golf balls in the
sadistic game of golf."
Obviously, Josh thought, this guy knew nothing about the government.
"So I repeat, stay calm and shut the fuck up, and no one will be
hurt." This
was followed by screaming, most notably a woman's, and, to his astonishment,
Sam's voice saying: "Would you be quiet?!"
"Sam?" Josh said stupidly.
"I said shut up!" screamed the golf ball guy, and then there was a
sharp
report that sounded like-
"Sam? Was that a gunshot?" The screaming increased, then stopped
abruptly.
Josh held the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment before
shaking his head. "Whatever, Sam. This is the worst practical joke you've
ever come up with." With that, he slammed his phone down as hard as he
could, hoping he'd made enough noise to give Sam a headache for trying to
pull off a joke that lame. He snickered as he picked up a two of clubs.
Sam's Terrible, Horrible, No-good Week - 2
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