(~(~)~)
"Will?"
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's two in the morning, Will. Come to bed."
"Leo told me to start two speeches."
"Leo told you to get some sleep."
"He also claimed he was going home, and we both know what a blatant lie that was."
"And unless you want to grow up to be just like him, I suggest you come to bed."
"In a bit."
"These knots in your shoulders--"
"Sam, don't - oh, god, that feels good. Don't do that. I have work to do."
"You've done enough for one day."
"I can't seem to get the second speech started."
"Which one?"
"The one if they don't find her. Or if they find her - I mean..."
"They'll find her."
"Alive? Walken's - I know you think he's not an evil man, but you're wrong. His first act in office is going to be global nuclear annihilation."
"And then your speech won't matter."
"I mean it, Sam. There's - he has, basically, no diplomats in that room. He's listening to Fitwallace, and he's listening to McNally. It's like Casper's not even in the room. It's like Leo doesn't even exist."
"How do you even know that?"
"I know him. I know how men like that work."
"He's not your father, Will."
"He's close enough."
"There is nothing you could have done, Will. Nothing."
"I keep thinking - she's not that much younger than Elsie. And now she's a number on a file on somebody's desk. If any child of mine - what were Andy and Toby thinking? This is the world their children are coming into."
"Andy and Toby are making it better. That's what they do."
"And a bang-up job they're doing of it. All of us."
"You're a speech-writer, Will; there's nothing you could have done."
"Then what the hell am I doing?"
"What you can. You're doing what you can. Nobody's omnipotent. There's no Superman; even President Bartlet's powers aren't limitless."
"Ellie and Liz came in this morning, did you know? And they're - all of them - they don't speak. They wander around the Residence with this glazed expression. How can I write that speech, Sam? How do I write the words for a man to stand in front of a nation and say, 'My child is dead'?"
"Did you speak at Ira's funeral?"
"Did I - what?"
"When Ira died. Did you give a eulogy?"
"Are you kidding me? His family didn't kick me out of the synagogue, and I considered myself damned lucky."
"So write what you would've said for him. Write the kind of speech you would've given for him."
"It's not the same."
"It's exactly the same. President Bartlet loves Zoey; you loved Ira."
"But he wasn't kidnapped by terrorists, and I'm not the President of the United States."
"It's a place to start. Something to hold onto."
"I keep thinking, if I can stall long enough, Leo will call. Leo will call, and he'll say that Zoey's been found, and she's fine, and I won't need the second speech."
"She will."
"I don't believe that nearly as much as I did before they started blowing up Turkey, and Walken started looking...crazy, Sam. He looked crazy."
"Then maybe it'll be the other call. That's something you have to be prepared for. But, you know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think you should be in bed when the call comes. Whichever call is coming."
"Sam, I can't--"
"How long has it been since you've typed a single word?"
"Forty minutes."
"Then come to bed."
"Sam?"
"Hmm?"
"I've come down hard on Walken, but, if it were you, missing out there someplace...."
"I know. Me, too."
END