Title: There Must Be
Author: Mary (parkerma@gmail.com)
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing: multiple
Rating: PG
Notes: Experimental.

01. Lisa stopped returning Sam’s phone calls, his emails, his letters. Finally she returned the ring, in a small padded envelope without a note.

02. Leo watched as Jenny’s taxi drove away; the flowers on the table were dying already.

03. Abbey went to Pakistan.

04. Abbey went to Argentina.

05. Abbey went to Pennsylvania. Jed was never sure when or if she would return.

06. Sam rushed back to the office smelling vaguely of the sweet smoke that scented Laurie’s bedroom.

07. Mandy abandoned Josh on a hot day in July and left him with ice cream dripping down both fists in the middle of the Mall.

08. Doctor Freeride left Donna. Donna left Wisconsin.

09. Mallory kissed Sam and tripped out of the room to find her father. He was too astounded to follow her.

10. Danny, desperate, took a vacation from the press room with its rows of chairs and its towering mistress.

11. There were a few pennies on the floor from Cliff’s pocket-upending struggle to get back into his pants. Donna turned them over in her palm and then dropped them in a jar with the rest of her loose change.

12. Andi kissed Toby on the cheek and went out to the car. His beard was damp in spots from her tears.

13. Josh stomped down the stairs of Amy's building, stiff-kneed with rage, desperate for a phone.

14. Jordan left an apologetic voicemail about a chance she had in California, doing what she'd always dreamed of. Leo saved it and played it over when he got lonely.

15. Abbey went to New Hampshire and took Zoey with her. Jed slept alone in the big white bed and snapped at Charlie when the phone rang in the mornings.

16. Sam hadn't left and that was the problem. Josh sat on the dorm fire escape with a bottle of tequila.

17. Delores woke up one morning and realized that missing her husband didn't hurt anymore.

18. CJ glanced at the caller id and didn't put down the remote. Ben had never learned that she hated long-distance relationships.

19. Zoey rolled herself up in her comforter and cried, thinking of Charlie weary on the Metro back to the White House.

20. It wasn't as if they were lovers, Leo thought. Still, when Nurse Chakravorty had left, he felt a funny little ache in his chest that had nothing to do with the health of his arteries.

21. This time, Amy was easier to leave. At least Josh still had his cell phone.

22. There was only enough time for a swift kiss before Jack left for the airport, taking his sabre and his pants with the thirteen buttons. Donna sighed and steeled herself to face Josh's peculiar brand of gleeful sympathy.

23. Mallory called in the middle of the night to tell him she had left Richard, but Sam was still at the office. By the time he got around to returning her message, she had a new boyfriend. He was left cold again.

24. The elevator was slow. CJ shivered, pulling her coat tightly around her, although she didn't know why she'd worn it. She'd only gone down a few floors. She wondered if Hoynes had taken off his ring. She couldn't remember.

25. Jean-Paul was pushed onto the next plane to France and no one cared, Zoey least of all.

26. There were other men, other dates, and Josh was always at the end of them, drawing Donna back with a half-apologetic voicemail.

27. Abbey went to the Residence, pressing a dry kiss to Jed's cheek. Leo turned his eyes away patiently.

28. Josh thought of Joey every time he wore the suit, wondering why he'd never called her, why he'd let her leave without goodbyes.

29. Ed and Larry had had girlfriends once. Now they spent their weekends watching football together. No need for lovers; they had statistics and beer.

30. Will, going through his desk, found a picture of his ex, the one who had left him because it was stupid to campaign for a dead guy.

31. Josh thought about calling Donna, asking her out for real New Hampshire pancakes, but he had never been sure if there was really something between them. Maybe this would mend a professional fence or two, anyway. He missed her more than he liked to admit.

32. Simon, tragic Simon, taken away from her after a kiss and a promise. It wasn't fair. It was petty crime in every sense. CJ couldn't stand New York anymore.

33. It was easy to dismiss Janine all those nights. John Hoynes knew she worshiped him, wouldn't suspect anything if he was still making phone calls when she left. But tonight when he called Helen, she told him it was over.

34. Andi got up from the bed and Toby sat halfway up in protest. She quieted him with a finger against his lips and pointed to the bathroom in a vow to return to the quiet space they had salvaged from the wreck of their marriage.

35. Sam and Ainsley went out to dinner a few times, kissed in the dark of the stairwell near the steam pipe trunk distribution venue, said goodnight thinking of a strange and wonderful future.

36. Not like this, Leo thought. He stood with his arm around Abbey's shoulder, watching Jed's surgery through the observation window.

37. Annabeth hadn't lied. She did have a date every night. Every night she abandoned them at the doorstep, unsatisfied, still waiting for the right man to come along.

38. Ellie lived alone, worked alone. Then one day she met a girl she didn't want to leave for the lab in the mornings and learned to drag herself out of bed.

39. It was only once that Donna found herself fumbling with the buttons of Amy's blouse. But you couldn't lose someone you never had.

40. There were days Toby found himself wondering if CJ still made that small sound when she woke in the middle of the night greedy for comfort.

41. Never leave, she said. He paused at the door, helpless, torn.

42. Ginger and Bonnie went out on raucous double dates, drank too much and ended up improvising impressions of Toby and Sam, laughed it off as love 'em and leave 'em.

43. Abbey came back, but sat quietly in bed doing the crossword. Jed had always known there was more than one way to leave a room.

44. Kate wasn't really sure if her annivorcery was something to celebrate, but drinking club soda with Leo, it didn't seem so bad. Both of them were coming back to something, in their own odd little ways.

45. Josh watched Santos with his pretty blonde wife and had to think very firmly about education plans and stump speeches. There were certain kinds of opposition research that just weren't plausible.

46. Daisies appeared in Zoey's room, wrapped in the paper of the florist nearest the White House. I got a raise, the card said, so how about dinner? Charlie always forgave her for running away, somehow.

47. The road back to her father's house was familiar, dreamily so. CJ listened to Simon and Garfunkel, wondering if she was on a tour of one night stands, if she'd find someone to stay with.

48. Liz had thought about leaving, idly. But there were children, and Doug wasn't always a jackass, and he loved her.

49. We miss you, Josh and Donna told Sam on the three way phone call he'd insisted on as a birthday present. I love you guys, he said, and listen, there are things you guys need to talk about. You love each other, he said, and there's nothing wrong with that except that you're both trying to leave each other all the time and I don't think it's working. There are a lot of kinds of love, Donna said, and picked up her coffee. There are a lot of kinds of leaving, Josh said, looking at her across the table.

50. Here at what felt like the end of all things, Jed realized he'd always known Abbey would come back. No separation of theirs could be permanent. That was what vows were for, to tell him that she would be here, dressing him for Santos' inauguration.

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