[for Josh]

[playingsmart]

A day in this place and he hadn't found Josh yet. Sam had found the other man's dorm, but there'd been no sight of him. Still, he'd hung around the compound, knowing the other guy would show up eventually. After all, it was an island. It wasn't like Josh would be out and about exploring the jungle or anything. Sam couldn't picture that any

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[playingstupid]

Josh heard the voice as he passed by the door of the rec room and stopped dead, his heart pounding. No. No way. It can't- He took the last few steps to stand in the doorway, his lips parted and his eyes scanning the room. He found the familiar figure instantly, and stared openly, eyes blinking wetly. Jesus. Now I'm seeing things and hearing things? Fuck.

He knew when he blinked, Sam would be gone or replaced by someone similar but so wrong, so he just stood there, slouched against the doorframe, and stared.

[playingsmart]

It took Sam a minute to abandon the paper completely, finally looking up to see his friend in the door. It shocked him to see the man there standing so still and just staring, losing his grip on the mug, coffee spilling everywhere.

"Dammit, Josh. Say hello to a guy, don't just stand there staring." He stood, the coffee hot, and his clothes wet, but Sam didn't really care right now. Honestly, he'd been beginning to wonder if Donna and Ainsley had been mistaken. Or if maybe his arrival had meant his best friends' departure. Was it really surprising that with all that had happened in the past 24 hours he crossed the room in a couple of steps, grabbing Josh in a hug? Sam didn't think so, even if it meant getting the other man wet and perhaps looking like a bit of an idiot. "Y'know this island thing you have going here is a bit weird. Couldn't you have picked somewhere closer to civilization to get stranded?"

[playingstupid]

Josh's eyes grew wide as the hallucination acknowledged his presence and then knocked over the coffee. His mouth dropped open and he stared openly at the figure in front of him, which he was slowly realizing was actually Sam. "I-"

In seconds Sam had closed the gap between them, and then Sam's arms were wrapped around him, his face buried in Sam's shoulder, his nose hitting hard muscle and collarbone. Jesus-- He squeezed his eyes shut and just held on for what felt like dear life, his hands fisting in Sam's shirt. God, let this be real.

He took a shaky breath in. "Yeah, sorry about that one. There aren't cabana boys, either, Donna already checked." His voice was raw, and he was testing this out, seeing if talking back would shatter this, make it disappear. See if he'd be left staring at the ceiling in bed, awake from another dream. Let it be real, let it be real, let it be real...

[playingsmart]

After more than four years of working with Josh, being on the campaign trail, or in the office twelve hours every day, well, there were some people you just got used to being around. Josh was more than a friend, he was like a brother in some ways, and Sam hadn't realized until he heard his crack about cabana boys just how relieved he'd been to hear Josh was here.

And just how worried he'd been that Josh wasn't actually here. That maybe he'd disappeared, or... Sam didn't know. He just knew it was good to see his friend.

"She said," Sam pulled back, his hands on Josh's shoulders. Sure he'd just seen the guy less than twenty four hours before, but considering all that had happened, he wasn't ready to let go quite yet. "She also said there are dinosaurs, so I'm not really sure what to think. Maybe she's found all the cabana boys and locked them away somewhere for her own amusement."

"I never thought I'd have to say this Josh, but God, it's good to see you."

[playingstupid]

Josh pulled back, his hands still at Sam's waist, his eyes gleaming. His face cracked into a grin of Joshly epic proportions, with dimples deep enough to hide things in. Jesus. It had been one year, seven months, and twenty eight days since he'd seen Sam. But now... He couldn't stop staring. Life without his best friend was like missing a limb, but him being back was a greater high than he could have realized.

He shook his head, eyes scanning Sam's face. "There are dinosaurs, but they're confined to one side of the island. I actually threw the cabana boys over there with them;" he shrugged, grinning. "they were pissing me off."

He stared at Sam another minute before yanking him in by his shirt for another bone-crushing hug. "Missed you, man." He was pretty sure his voice didn't crack. Mostly sure.

[playingsmart]

"Good. I've always said never trust a cabana boy." Sam let himself be pulled into the hug, grinning widely. "It's those little shorts they wear. They still do wear little shorts, right, or am I just thinking of old episodes of the Love Boat?"

The dinosaurs thing was still sort of weird, but what about this place wasn't? The different timelines, the fact it all seemed like a bad movie some of the time. This time when he pulled back, he looked a bit more seriously at Josh. "Two years? Really?"

[playingstupid]

He laughed almost wildly, the joy of having Sam here going to his head. He let him go, finally, eyes shining. Sam was here. Actually, honestly, here. It blew his mind.

He grinned crookedly for a moment, until Sam's face grew flat. Two years. His smile faded and he looked at the floor a moment before glancing back up at him. "Two and a half years." He shook his head. "It was just after the midterms."

[playingsmart]

His head shake was more incredulous than disbelieving. "We just won a second term. A landslide they were calling it. Of course, it didn't look so good on the house front, but you win some, you lose some. Oh, we won Orange county. Sort of."

This was easy. This was talking about things that were familiar. Things they talked about every day. "Just after the midterms?" Sam was trying to place what that meant Josh would know. What he'd have missed. "That's a while. Bet you have this place sorted out."

[playingstupid]

Won. Josh shook his head grinning. "Did you tell Donna? She was going on and on about Indiana when she got here." He shook his head. "Something about the campaign trail." He grinned. "She'll be over the moon."

"Wait, we won Orange County? Are you sure??" Josh stared at him. This was much easier than trying to explain that he'd missed years of life at the White House, that he was still getting over the shooting, that Toby had had kids, that the President had MS, that the entire world of the West Wing had crashed around his ears and he knew none of it.

[playingsmart]

Sam couldn't help it. He grinned. Of course he grinned. "Don't worry, we all remember Indiana. Our very own intrepid explorers. Lewis and Clark all over again. Only, you and Toby were probably more like Abbot and Costello." Okay, so he was amused. Amused and at Josh's expense. it wasn't the first time, and Sam knew it wouldn't be the last. "You ever get lost in the jungle here?"

It was easier to talk about, or so Sam thought. So much had happened in those years to pull them together. To try and pull them apart. Yet, here he was with his best friend, and he'd had two years as well. Two entirely different ones that didn't have anything to do with Sam, or the White House. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. "Yeah, we won. Did I mention the candidate was dead?"

Soon he'd get into Aristotle. He was sure.

[playingstupid]

Josh arched an eyebrow. "Abbot and Costello? Hardly. I'm sure we were highly capable on our own. How many IQ points between the two of us? We were fine." The fact that he hadn't been there in the first place probably helped with his confidence.

"That explains quite a bit. People in Orange County are just barely more likely to vote for a Democrat than they are a dead Republican. What was the margin? Ten points? Less?" He grinned at Sam, enjoying himself.

[playingsmart]

"You were fine because you had Donna with you. Without her I'm pretty sure you would have starved to death in a field somewhere. The President could have made it a National Park. See, service to your country, even in your last moments." It was too hard to not tease his friend. It was how they dealt with things, what they did. It meant that things weren't that crazy. That there was still a little bit of normal left in the world.

"Ah, no. The Democrat was dead." Sam winced. "I have the paper over there if you want to see?" He really hoped Josh said no.

[playingstupid]

"Without Donna I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it to a reelection campaign in the first place." Josh raised his eyebrows, grinning. It was no good to argue; Sam was right, as always.

He held up a hand, brow furrowed. "Wait. Wait. You're telling me the Democrats won back Orange County with a candidate who was dead?" He arched an eyebrow. "This I've got to see."

[playingsmart]

"Yeah, yeah you do." Sam sighed as he grabbed the paper, turning it over beneath the fold to the story, right there in print. Horton Wilde, the campaign, and right beside it Sam's picture and bio. He handed it over to his friend. "It was Aristotelean, i'm telling you. The DNC left town a week before. There was this storm... No one thought he would win."

And he'd made a promise to a grieving widow. That was it.

[playingstupid]

Josh looked down at the paper with a grin on his face, the grin fading to confusion as he took in the photo, the bio, the story. "Huh." His brow furrowed as he read on, before finally looking up at Sam. "You're- You-"

[playingsmart]

"He wasn't going to win." Hell, Sam was pissed that they'd run the story. He wasn't going to run, it was obvious. "I said it to the widow. She was upset. She needed to hear that someone would step in. I didn't mean it."

That's what bothered him most about all of this. He hadn't meant it.