It was four forty-two in the morning, Josh noted as he slowly shifted his weight on the hospital bed, careful not to jar any of the IVs still attached to his body. Not for much longer, he hoped.

The stage right before the sweet victory of walking-to-the-bathroom-on-one's-own and right after the blissfully doped-up oblivion was the most annoying of them all, he had decided, where the reduced amount of painkillers had numbed the worst of his pains, but not enough of his brain.

Now that he wasn't unconscious twenty-three and a half hours a day, he was starting to get bored. Under Donna's strict regulations, not only he could not ask about work, he could not even mention the words, "work", "politic", "congress", "senate", or their variations, in any government-related context. Because she didn't want him to stress himself out. She and his mother and Leo and everyone else. Stress, his ass.

"The Simpsons" reruns could only go so far, and restless was an understatement.

Thank god there was always Sam.

Looking to his left, Josh wasn't surprised to find the sleeping figure folded uncomfortably into the plastic chair by his bed. Sam's head was tipped forward, his chin almost touching his shoulder. His glasses sat halfway down his nose. A memo lay on his lap. His tie was loosened, and his hair was ruffled. It had become a comfortingly familiar sight.

Sam had been coming to see him every day - one of the more pleasant constants among the colossal annoyances.

Occasionally, he came in the mornings before going to work, or during breaks, but mostly he was there at night. He would read articles from the day's newspapers to him, behind Donna's back of course, or tell him how Kathy gave away his entire stock of Twinkies again, or how Toby almost hit Leo with one of his balls. Donna would kill Sam, if she found out what they had been doing all along. But she never would, not if he could help it. His best friend was keeping him sane, especially during those nights when he had trouble sleeping. Not to mention he was currently leading with five games to Sam's four in their little name-that-congress-member contest.

He was pondering if he should wake Sam up for another game, since his friend usually got up in another fifteen minutes anyway, when he caught a quick twitch of Sam's hand out of the corner of his eyes.

Josh watched Sam for a moment, and wondered what it was that he was dreaming. Anything it might be, he didn't think it was sun-tanning on a Bermuda beach surrounded by bikini chicks. A deep frown had grown on Sam's face, and his hunched shoulders tensed. Maybe he was having trouble writing in his dream? His hands twitched again. Both of them this time.

Deciding that he would wake Sam after all, Josh reached out, and shook the speechwriter's knee gently. The action elicited no response from the sleeping man.

"Sam." Josh tried again. He shook hard enough this time to make the document on Sam's lap slide onto the floor with a not-so-quiet flop. And it worked.

Sam woke with a sharp intake of breath. His eyes snapped open, as he sat up abruptly in his chair.

"Sam?" The tension in Sam's posture was starting to make Josh nervous.

His friend didn't answer. In fact, he wasn't even looking at him. He was looking at his own hands. He examined them, palms and backs and palms and backs, as if he were Luke Skywalker inspecting his newly installed cybernetic hand.

"Sam?" Josh repeated. Concern now laced with his voice.

Finally, Sam looked up at Josh. He stared at him for a long moment, then closed his eyes and breathed out a heavy sigh. His frown relaxed, and his expression turned into something akin to relief.

"Josh." He took off his glasses, and rubbed his face with both hands.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. He looked up, his eyes meeting Josh's. "It's fine."

"You sure?"

"It's nothing. Just a dream." Sam glanced away and nodded again. Then an apologetic look loomed on his face. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

"No, I was awake. What was it?"

"It's nothing."

"Bad dream?"

"It was just... a bit intense."

"Yeah. I know how they can be."

"They're just dreams."

"That's all they are." Josh nodded. "Just dreams. And nothing more."

"Yeah." Sam looked at the clock on the wall, and rubbed his eyes again. "Anyway. What are you doing awake at five in the morning? Donna's going to kill you if she finds out. No, actually, she's going to kill me if she finds out."

"Like she isn't going to kill you if she finds out you've been reading the newspapers to me?"

"Yeah." Sam pondered for a brief moment. "I suppose it's too late to worry about it now."

"I'll never tell. Your secret is safe with me."

"Josh, you can't even keep your own secrets." Sam snorted. "Remember that time you told everyone at the Christmas party how your first kiss was with a boy in second grade?"

"Hey. In my defense, I was drunk at the time!"

"You were on your second beer," his friend replied with a small chuckle. "Anyway. I'm going to splash some water on my face. Try to go back to sleep."

"I'm not tired. I fell asleep around seven thirty last night."

"What did Donna do?"

"She was reading some woman's autobiography to me."

"Okay. You want to do something, then? I have to leave at six. Staff at seven this morning."

"How about another game?" Josh grinned. "Give you a chance to even up, just so you don't have any excuses."

"I don't need any excuses. I'm letting you win because I'm a good friend. But sure, we can do that. And I can get newspapers from downstairs."

"Along with two cups of coffee?"

"You're pushing it, Josh."

"Oh come on, Sam. You're my best friend."

"And I don't want you to have survived an eighteen-hour surgery only to have died of a caffeine-induced heart attack."

"I'm fine. In fact, I'm doing great. The doctors said so."

"Then you'll get to drink coffee again soon enough. You can wait."

"Geeze. I swear, you're worse than Donna sometimes."

"Just be glad that I read newspapers and not autobiographies to you."

"Go and get the newspapers. And finish your coffee before you come back."

"Demanding, aren't we?" Sam snickered.

"What are you waiting for? Get going now."

"I'll be right back."

"Well, I'll be right here."