Slight spoilers for In The Shadow of Two Gunmen. Response to the Sam Seaborn Fanfiction Archive current challenge: Write the first meeting between Sam and any West Wing character.

Disclaimers: They're not mine. Not a single, blessed one of them.

He stumbles into the room, a box of office supplies balanced precariously on his hip, barely missing the person already there.

"I'm sorry, I must have the wrong office."

He watches the hunched form straighten into a woman. A woman several inches taller than he is. His first thought is that her hair is too curly for her slim face. His second thought is, that despite the hair, she's still stunning.

He realizes too late that he's been staring and feels the heat moving into his cheeks. He wonders if it's technically considered voyeurism if the subject knows they are being watched.

She smiles coyly and he suddenly believes that she often finds herself the center of attention.

He switches the unwieldy box to the other hip, wiping his hand on the leg of his jeans before offering it. "Sam Seaborn."

Her hand is slender, almost delicate, in his. Her grip is strong, though, uncompromising. "CJ Cregg. Nice to meet you."

She drops his hand, gesturing to the small office space. "I claimed the rolling chair, but left you the larger desk. Hope you don't mind."

He looks around, noticing the two sets of furniture for the first time. "So we're sharing an office?" he asks, hoping he doesn't sound as childish as he feels.

"No one told you?"

"Josh...the guy who brought me on...he sometimes forgets to mention the details." Not that any of the details would have stopped him from coming, but sometimes he wishes that Josh could just forget about the big picture for once.

CJ laughs, he hopes, at his tone and not his situation. "Well, Toby assures me that we'll be out campaigning so much we'll hardly see this place."

"Toby Ziegler?" He sets down his box and turns back to her. Interested now that he's finally made the connection. She must be the Press Secretary, the one from California; her name another detail Josh couldn't remember.

"Yeah. You know him?"

"No," he admits. "From what I hear, he's likely to be my boss, though."

"So maybe that's why he stuck us together. He just wanted to keep his minions in one place."

He laughs, wondering if she's always this dry. Wondering if she knows something he should.

"So how do you know him?" Sam gestures to the common area where Toby is talking to Leo.

"We have history."

He turns back to see CJ staring past him, her eyes not entirely focused.

"Why are you laughing?" she asks, her eyes on him again.

"I'm sorry. It's just the way you said that, it makes it sound like you guys were lovers in a past life or something."

Her lips turn up at the corners. "We were..." she begins to answer, and if he knew her better Sam thinks he would call her tone regretful. But all he knows about CJ Cregg is that she's taller than all the men on the staff and has a fondness for good chairs, so instead he decides her tone must just be wistful.

"We were something," she finishes, gracing him with a crooked smile.

It occurs to him, for the third time in the five minutes he's known her, that he might really like CJ.

"So let me guess," he seats himself on the desk, his feet leaving the floor. "He showed up, out of the blue, having not seen you for years. He came to drag you away from a good job and a good life, just so you could spend the next months of your life traipsing around the country all in the name of the 'real thing'."

She laughs, a high, ringing full-bodied laugh. "Yeah, I'd say that pretty much covers it. Although, I will admit the job wasn't so great."

He nods slowly in agreement.

"And, if you want to get technical, I didn't really so much have a job. It was more of an ex-job at that point."

He nods again because, really, even if Josh hadn't shown up there's no way he would've walked out of that meeting with his own job intact.

CJ seats herself on the desk next to him, scooting back so that her feet dangle above the ground.

"So, how do you know Josh?"

"We, uh..." he starts, not really sure where he's going to end. He doesn't know how to answer that, not really. He thinks about saying they met on The Hill, working for their respective legislators. He could just say they were introduced by mutual friends one night. But neither is exactly true. He thinks, again, that the answer to that question is one of those details Josh never talks about.

He's inordinately thankful when CJ finishes his thought for him.

"...have history?" she offers, though it's not at all a question.

"Yeah." Sam wonders idly if CJ thinks he sounds regretful or wistful. Doubts that she knows him enough yet to tell the difference. Doubts, sometimes, that he knows himself well enough to tell the difference.

"So," he breaks the companionable silence. "Are you really set on the chair? Or are there negotiations to be had?"

"There are always negotiations. Make me an offer," she answers, taking his lead, switching gears quickly and quietly.

And he's pretty sure now, about CJ. He really does like her.