Easy Silence

Josh wakes to the buzzing of his cell phone. With the experience of one used to receiving phone calls at any time, day or night, he levers himself on one elbow and conducts a thorough though fruitless search of his night stand, before realizing that there is a muffled quality to the buzzing. With a faint memory of checking his emails one last time before closing his eyes, he fishes the phone from under his pillow, and finds that it is his alarm, not a phone call that has woken him up. There's no state of national emergency, no situation demanding his immediate attention; it's four fifteen and it's time to get up.

When the calls and conversations

Accidents and accusations

Messages and misperceptions

Paralyse my mind

"So I've been thinking." Sam is standing in the doorway, twirling his empty coffee mug round one finger.

"Huh?"

"I said I've been thinking."

"Oh. OK." Josh nods absently, and goes back to his briefing memo.

There's a brief pause. Then, "You want to know wha…"

Josh puts down his pen, leans his head on one hand, and eases his tie away from his neck with the other. "I thought it possible that you'd do that unprovoked, Sam, but you know, go right ahead."

Sam pauses, only now gauging his friend's mood. "Well, ah, it's not that important…"

"No, let me have it."

"I'll come back later…"

"Sam!"

"It only occurred to me that on my way in this morning when Ronna phoned me, that there are an awful lot of people who work here who have rhyming names."

"Rhyming names."

"You know, Bram…Sam…Ronna…Donna…actually, you know, this can wait."

Josh widens his eyes in mock disbelief. "You know what, Sam, I don't think it can. Rhyming names? I've been waiting my entire political life to blow the lid off that one. Quick, go, write me a position paper on it. I'll stick on the top of this pile here, right on top of Lou's paper arguing for tax deductible college tuition and we'll take it to the President right after Big Bird and Snuffy have finished giving him their security briefing." He picks up his pen and goes back to annotating his memo.

Sam hesitates for a second, and then steps deliberately into the office, perching on the arm of the sofa. He tips his mug back and forth between his hands, looking thoughtfully at his friend who appears to have forgotten he is there. There is silence save for the clock, the very faint sound of CNN coming from the TV in the corner of the room, the scratch of Josh's pen and the gradual buzz of the office outside.

Sam glances at his watch, then glances back at Josh. "Donna back yet?"

Josh closes his eyes for a second, pinches the bridge of his nose. The phrase Why are you still here? is heavy in the air but Sam, normally among the first to pick up on the signals is apparently unaware of this. He sighs, forcing himself to be civil. "No. They're probably back tomorrow. Early tomorrow, that's what Lisa said when I spoke to her last night."

Sam frowns. "Lisa ?"

"Yeah."

"Donna's assistant?"

"What's your point, Sam?"

Sam pauses, clearly phrasing it in his head first. "It's just…I thought you might have talked about it with Donna…"

"No."

"…your wife…"

Josh glances up. "Thanks for reminding me." He nods in the direction of the Princeton mug still hooked on Sam's finger. "You on the way to fill that up?"

Sam nods. "I was. The machine outside my office appears to be broken, and when I yelled for Cathy to ask her to find out what happened to it between yesterday night and this morning, all I got was the new intern, who is about twelve, by the way, who's apparently terrified of me, who didn't even know we had a coffee machine there and made me feel like a caffeine-dependant octogenarian in the process." The look being directed at him by the White House Chief of Staff puts him right back on message. "You want one too?"

"No need." Hester appears from the outer office with a cup of coffee in her hand, demonstrating, for what will surely be the first of many times that morning, precisely the reason why Josh hired her as his assistant. Or rather, agreed with Bram and Ronna when they left her CV on the top of the pile, marked with a post-it reading HIRE HER. "Morning Sam, sorry about your coffee machine, I believe there was some kind of incident last night involving a cleaning cart and an ill-placed broom. I've spoke with maintenance, who say they'll have a replacement up here before eleven. Here, give me your cup, I'll go grab you one before senior staff, which is in twenty-five minutes, Josh," she directs the last part at her boss, deposits yet more paperwork on his desk, takes Sam's mug from his hands, and exits the office leaving a slightly stunned silence behind her.

"And on that note…" Sam gets up from the sofa arm, encouraged at the almost-smile lurking on his friend's face, "I should go get on with what I was doing before I, ah…"

"Decided to audition for a spot on Sesame Street?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Senior staff in twenty-five?"

"Make it fifteen, there are a couple of things I need to go through with you."

"Sure. Oh, and Josh?" Sam pauses in the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"Call Donna."

Josh passes a weary hand across his eyes. "Yeah." He finishes going through his briefing memo with a speed born of practice, then, with a baleful glare at the clock that reads 07:05, turns up the volume on the TV and takes a mouthful of coffee.

Despite the many years he has spent getting up at an hour that even the most conscientious kid with a paper round would call 'night time', Josh is not a morning person. He never has been. When Joanie was still alive, she would wake him up every morning playing the piano: a selection of hits from the shows (Steven Sondheim was a favourite), the opening bars of Moonlight Sonata or, if she'd had a fight with Mom, Chopin's Funeral March played heavily with one finger. He would finally get out of bed, jointly persuaded by his sister's relentless musicality, the smell of Mom's pancakes wafting up the stairs, and the slightly anxious-making feeling that Dad had probably already been at work for about an hour. At Yale, it took an old fashioned wind-up alarm clock in a saucepan to wake him in time to get to the library for some reading before his first class, a technique that won him few friends in the apartment block where he first rented after college. He abandoned it on his third morning there when, after leaving the apartment at six-thirty, he ran into a wild-eyed neighbour in a bath robe who enquired, none too politely, if he too had been woken by the bag of hammers falling downstairs.

Now older, he hopes wiser, with three consecutive Presidential campaigns behind him and another on the horizon, with earlier mornings than he ever remembers having, and later nights than he cares to admit, he's finally figured out a routine that works. Sure, there are times when he is woken half an hour after he turns out the light by advisors telling him that North Korea is showing its teeth, and there are days when he leaves the house relying on the fact that Hester keeps two clean suits in his cupboard, because he just spilt coffee down his only clean shirt and he's meeting with the British Ambassador at eight. These days only serve to make it more blindingly obvious what he needs to function at the level his job requires, the things that, first thing in the morning, make order of the chaos that is his job; he needs coffee, he needs CNN and, more recently, although he privately believes it might have made many of his early mornings more bearable if he'd realized this sooner, he needs Donna. Donna, who, six weeks into her job as his assistant, had weaned him off sugar in his coffee and was ordering his lunch without asking him; Donna who didn't tell him that everything was going to be OK after Leo died, but held his hand when no-one was looking; Donna who woke him at six on a Sunday morning to show him the pregnancy test she'd just taken, and who has, for the last four days, been accompanying the First Lady on a trip to visit projects with The Women's Funding Network in Texas, California and Michigan.

It had only occurred to him on the first evening after she left, when evening sunshine pooled on his desk, and he caught himself wondering if they both might get home in time to actually cook and eat dinner together, that he had always been the one to go away. There had been evenings when she didn't get home until after him, of course, and there had been the odd day when they bumped into each other getting coffee in the mess and realised that they hadn't seen each other, let alone talked in over twenty four hours. This is the first time, though, that she has had to pack a suitcase. He had gone home that first evening, still half expecting to find her humming along to Paul Simon as she made stir fry, and was unreasonably disappointed as he pushed open the front door to find it in darkness. Switching on the light in the kitchen, he had found two notes on the table. One, a list to herself: cell phone chargers (she will leave at least one in a hotel room), check, prenatal vitamins, check, travel iron, check. The other was a note to him with a list of plants to water and a reminder to feed Gail who, C.J. having deeming her too fragile to take on the plane to California, has defied expectations to become, in Danny's words, 'the longest-serving fish in Democratic politics'. He had made himself a sandwich, and long after he had finished it, had sat staring at the loopy D at the bottom of her note, trying not to feel like he was right back in his old office, when she left to join Russell's campaign, and wishing he'd been there to see her off.

Busses, cars, and airplanes leaving

Burnin' fumes of gasoline

And everyone is running and I

Come to find a refuge in the

Easy silence that you make for me

It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me

And the peaceful quiet you create for me

And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The way you keep the world at bay

"Josh?"

He jumps at the sound of Hester's voice and turns away from the TV, realizing with a glance at the clock that he has been staring at CNN for almost ten minutes and couldn't give a précis of the headlines if his life depended on it. He hits the mute button on the remote and turns in his chair, straightening his tie. "Yeah."

Hester pauses, a ghost of the expression Donna often wears when she knows something is wrong flitting across her face, "Sam's here…"

"Yeah, OK."

Sam enters wearing an almost identical expression to Hester, but makes no further comment. He is clearly trying to win back some respect after the whole Sesame Street thing.

Josh takes another mouthful of coffee, which is now decidedly past its best, and waves his deputy into the chair nearest his desk. "So. Where are we with the child labour amendment?"

Monkeys on the barricades

Are warning us to back away

They form commissions trying to find

The next one they can crucify

Almost seven hours later, after meetings with staffers, rebellious congressmen and both the National Security Advisor and the director of the FBI; after an emergency evacuation at the American Embassy in Kabul, a landslide in Peru, and a press briefing during which the press couldn't seem to decide whether they were more unsettled by the news that three new war ships appear to have been sent out with faulty radar equipment, or by a new study that seem to suggest that the average high school kid is exposed to porn at the age of twelve, Josh finally comes up for air. His break comes in the form of Hester, who puts her head round the door while he is in the middle of a frank exchange of ideas with Lou, to tell him that C.J. Cregg is on the phone.

"Tell her I'll phone her back."

"No," Lou gets to her feet, "I think we were done here. Or, rather, you were about to tell me we were."

"So you're, what…"

"Pre-empting you?" Lou crosses to where Hester is standing and turns, leaning on the open door. "I guess I am."

Hester smiles at Lou and then looks back at her boss. "I'll put her through, then?"

Maybe it's the name C.J. Cregg. Maybe it's the fact that it's the first time all morning that he hasn't talked about something of fairly international importance for three minutes together. Maybe it's the voice in his head, possibly his mother, probably Donna, saying that he hasn't had a breath of fresh air since he entered the building at a quarter to six. He is aware that it's quite possibly all three, but doesn't stop to think about it for too long. He grabs his coat from his closet. "You know what? Tell her I'll call her back on my cell. I'll be back in ten minutes."

There's chatter on the other end of the phone receiver that Hester is holding. She listens and then smiles. "She says to tell you to take half an hour, for the love of Mike."

Josh grins, shrugs into his coat and exits the outer office, leaving Hester standing by her desk, the phone still in her hand.

"Joshua 'Lemon' Lyman, how the devil are you?" The spring sunshine hits him as he leaves the building, so it's hard to tell whether this warm feeling is due to the weather or the fact C.J. has called him and it feels like it did when he caught Joanie saying something nice about him.

"I'm good."

"Yeah, I'm sure." C.J. laughs. "You know, that's exactly what I thought this morning when I was feeding Addie her oatmeal and watching the news. 'Honey,' I said, 'Your Uncle Josh will be having a fabulous day, so fabulous in fact that Mommy must remember to call him later and gloat about how she doesn't have anything to do with it any more.'"

"You always did know how to pick me right up, Claudia Jean."

"I'm quite the ray of sunshine, Joshua, you'd do well to remember that."

"So how are you? How's Addie?"

"She's great." C.J.'s voice changes and he can tell she's smiling. "She's grown so much since you guys saw her last."

"Danny got her writing yet?"

"She's eleven months old, Josh! She has a new word though, other than 'Mama' and 'Dada'."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Miaow."

"Wow, that's…useful."

"Mmm…about as useful as 'Bang!', I'd say…"

"What?"

"Yessir, your Mom and I had a great chat at your wedding..."

Josh winces. "So, 'miaow', that's pretty clever." He laughs. "I still can't believe you guys have cats."

"Josh, I moved from DC to California. I stopped obsessively checking my Blackberry. I started eating better. I started taking long walks on the beach. I got a tan. I got a job that doesn't take up my whole entire life. I got married. I had a kid. All these things and it's the fact that we got cats that weirds you out?"

Josh smiles, remembering the first time he and Donna went out to visit them in their big, sunny house. He remembers finding her on the porch early one morning, drinking tea and reading a book in her pajamas with Fred, or maybe Ginger in her lap, thinking then that he'd never seen her look so happy. "Yeah, I guess it does."

"So…" C.J.'s voice changes again, and he can tell that they're not talking about Addie and her first words any more. "I saw Donna the other day."

"Really? How is she?" The question is out there before he can take it back.

There's silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, and then C.J. says "Yeah, I thought it might be like that." She pauses, as if waiting for him to say something, and when he doesn't, says "So what happened?"

"It's nothing, really."

"Nothing." C.J. gives an exasperated sigh. "Josh, I have no wish to betray the sisterhood, but I feel it encumbered upon me to tell you that under normal conditions, your wife does not shut up about you, and given the brother-sister thing we've had going for the last however-many-years, I wonder if you can imagine how little pleasure it gives me to tell you that."

Josh smiles, despite himself. "I can, actually."

"Good. You'll appreciate, then, that It's nothing, C.J. does not adequately explain why I didn't hear your name once in the entire hour and quarter that I managed to clear out of her schedule. Towards the end, I was getting so desperate, I brought up basketball thinking that was a pretty safe bet, and do you know who she started talking about?"

"Charlie?"

"She started talking about Charlie, Josh! What's going on?"

"It's…" He pauses in the middle of his usual stock phrase and sighs. "We had a fight."

"Before she left to go on this trip?"

"Yeah."

"And you haven't managed to speak properly to each other since?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, she's left a message each time they've changed hotel, but other than that, every time I try and ring her, I get Lisa or some intern, and she only seems to phone when I'm in the middle of meetings."

"So what did you fight about?"

"I don't think I even remember any more."

"Sure you do."

"C.J., I…"

"Sure you do, Josh, that's why you've been having such a crappy few days; I'll bet you haven't stopped thinking about it."

"Yeah." The cherry trees are in bloom around the Tidal Basin. He sits down heavily on the first unoccupied bench he comes to, and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "C.J., this job…was it this hard for you? For Leo? Was it this…loud? I had this dream the other night where I was walking home and suddenly, all these protestors appeared out of nowhere, all going in the opposite direction. I tried to listen to what they were protesting about, but they were all shouting at once, and their placards made no sense. I stopped a couple of guys and told them who I was and that I wanted to help, but they just kept on shouting and shouting and they were so angry..." He sighs. "There are days when it feels like something actually gets done and someone actually benefits from what we do, but most of the time, it just feels like I'm in the middle of that protest rally. Donna was mad that the literacy programmes got cut from the education package, and even more mad that we'd had to let them go in order to get the votes for the tax bill. She said that I was only looking at the big picture, and that I thought that it didn't matter how we won as long as we won."

"And what did you say?"

"I said that winning was how we got to carry on making the decisions." There's a pause, in which Josh can almost see the face that C.J. is pulling. "What? Isn't that right?"

"Of course that's right, Josh, but at that exact moment, Donna was concerned that her husband was turning into some kind of political android, and telling her that winning is how you get to keep on winning might not have been the best decision." Josh is silent for a minute, so C.J. continues, slightly cautiously. "Was that all you fought about?"

"Basically. It was all very much on the same theme…oh fine, Dr Keyworth," he succumbs to her pointed silence, "She said she worries about me, that I've forgotten why I'm doing this. She said," he pauses, realising that this is what C.J. has been getting at all along, "that it sometimes seems like I'm only doing this job because Joanie can't, and I swear, C.J., say And how do you feel about that? and I will teach Addie some of my Grandmother's best Yiddish curses next time I see her."

C.J. laughs. "And how would you feel about that?"

"Pretty good, actually." He laughs, feeling lighter than he has in days, and leans back on his bench, looking up through the branches of the cherry trees to the bright blue sky. "The blossom's out."

"Round the Basin? Were you there for that poker game?"

"What, for Bartlet and the Cherry Trees? Oh yeah. They were first donated, if I recall, in 1912, by Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo…"

"…to enhance the relationship between Japan and the United States." C.J. laughs. "I miss that. Maybe we could make it over to DC next year to see them; I think Addie would love it."

"You should. Donna will…" he trails off as something occurs to him.

"You'll have the baby by then?"

"Yeah."

"Joshua Lyman, folks, Responsible Father."

"I know."

"You got any names you like?"

"We've not really talked about it. But even if we had, I don't know how you go about naming someone? What if they hate it? What if my daughter always resents me for calling her Hortense?"

"Hortense?"

"Just an example. How did you choose Addie's name?"

"Well, Danny's Grandmother was called Addison, you remember her at our wedding? The tiny one with the outrageous sense of humour?"

"The one who President Bartlet talked to for about four hours?"

"That's the one. She died when I was about four months pregnant, and we thought naming our daughter after her would be nice. More than that, though, when I finally met her, she just looks like an Addie. It felt right. You'll be fine, Josh, you and Donna."

He nods, although there's no one there to see it. "I know."

"I don't just mean the naming thing, either."

"I know that, too." He pauses. "I miss her, C.J., the house isn't quiet, it's just empty."

"You've never been the one left at home, have you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

C.J. laughs. "It's exactly what Danny said when I got back from my first trip to Africa."

"Great, I must call him."

"What, and feel emasculated together?"

"Something like that." He glances at his watch. "I should get back. I have to meet with…actually, you know what? I bet you don't even want to know."

"You know? I actually don't." C.J. laugh again. "Wow, I must remember to tell Danny when he gets in later, he'll be so proud. OK, I'll let you go. Take care of yourself, Joshua, and Donna, when she gets home. She looked pretty tired."

"I will."

"And give my love to Samuel."

"Yeah. And C.J…thanks."

"Any time. And Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't call your daughter Hortense."

Anger plays on every station

Answers only make more questions

I need something to believe in

Breathe in sanctuary in the

Easy silence that you make for me

It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me

And the peaceful quiet you create for me

And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The way you keep the world at bay

Back in the office, he tries to ring Donna again, and when her cell goes to answer phone, he tries Lisa, with similar results. He eats the chicken salad that Hester has ordered in for him while making inroads into the pile of memos that have been looking at him all morning, and is about to try phoning Joe, one of the other assistants on the trip, when Otto comes by with a couple of first drafts for him to look at before they get sent to the President, and then Sam looks in to tell him how his meeting on the Hill went. Coming out of his meeting with Ainsley Hayes and her staff, he notices it's coming up for six, and when he next looks at his watch, it's seven-thirty and he's putting on his jacket to go through to the Oval Office.

"How's it going, Josh?" Matt Santos looks up from his reading as his Chief of Staff enters.

"Pretty good, thank you sir."

"Drink?"

"No thank you."

"You know," Matt leans forward to pick up his glass and swirls its contents thoughtfully before taking a mouthful, "There should be some kind of law against letting your President drink alone."

"That's a good idea sir, I'll mention that to Sam."

"You're humouring me."

"Yes, sir. And you're drinking iced tea."

Matt smiles and puts his glass down on the coffee table. "The last time I went to tuck in the kids after a whiskey, Miranda told me I 'smelt of drink'. You can imagine what Helen would have to say, not to mention the kind of coronary Lou'd have if that little gem got around the school playground."

Josh imagines it for a moment, and for about the fiftieth time, thanks the powers that be that he never had to work in the White House with both Lou and Toby. "Yes sir."

"Although I heard that the Communications Office was the place to be after Maggie's press briefing this morning." Matt reaches into his briefcase, which is lying open on the chair next to him, and pulls out a folder.

Josh shakes his head and getting to his feet, goes to pour himself a glass of water. "Lou was mad, sir. I was mad. We were blindsided by this study, if you can call it that. I wanted to keep it off your radar while you were dealing with the situation in Kabul, but I think it's fair to say that we've probably not heard the last of it. The figures got leaked before we could handle them, and they're not like the figures that come in about literacy or home ownership; the press hardly need to sex them up to make them more newsworthy."

"No, I can see that; they're kind of sexy enough. So what does Lou say?"

"We'll probably have to meet about it tomorrow, but the general gist of her argument is that we need to publicly discredit the way in which the figures were presented, and try to make it as difficult as possible for them to be used as a political bargaining chip."

Santos nods, still looking at the open folder in front of him. "And you?"

"I think this data is going to appeal to certain groups, but no matter how much we try to tell people that it's not true, the fact is that we don't know if it's true or not! I can't see any way of commissioning a similar, official study that won't look like we're scrabbling to cover up some hideous truth, or trying to make the figures say what we want them to, which, incidentally, is almost certainly what this study has done."

"Yes, I must say I was surprised to see that this section of what might be loosely termed 'analysis' appears to equate 'occasionally sneaking a look at Playboy' with 'ritually downloading and watching porn'." He throws the folder onto the coffee table. "It's garbage, plain and simple. Why can't we just say that?"

"Sir, we can't because it's not just garbage, it's worse than that, it's," Josh pauses, searching for the word, "controversial garbage, it's toxic. You can't handle this kind of stuff without getting it all over you. It's What are our kids doing at school when we can't be there to watch them? It's Who are these people we're paying to teach them? It's How can we protect them if they're not even safe playing on the computer in their bedroom? It's the worst fears of every parent, and it will have made itself a political issue before we even start talking about it."

"So what do we do about it?" Santos asks, reaching for his glass and swirling the contents again before draining it.

"Well, we can't do nothing. We can't dismiss it as hysterical and incendiary, although that's exactly what it is, because it will just prompt twenty more, each one more lurid than the last. I agree with Lou that we need to release a statement saying we're concerned about the conclusions of the study, but that we consider many aspects of the findings to be inflammatory and misleading, but I don't think that we should be getting any more involved in the study than we already are." Josh leans forward in his chair, suddenly animated, and taps the folder in front of him. "I mean, I don't need these pieces of paper to tell me that we've got problems in this country, and I'm sure you don't. Why are we even talking about engaging with these people? I'm sure that among them are genuinely concerned American citizens, but until someone can present us with figures that appear to have some purpose other than to shock people and engage the press, we should be sitting down with parents and teachers and internet providers and figuring out ways of addressing the problems, not going round and round on who's right and who's wrong. Sir, you're a father, I'm…" he pauses for a fraction of a second, "going to be one. We actually have the power to do something about these problems that are going to be facing our kids. We should be fixing things." He sits back in his seat, runs a hand through his hair, and adds, quietly and almost incredulously, "That's why I'm doing this."

The President looks hard at him for a moment, before nodding. "OK then."

Josh looks up. "Sorry, sir?"

"You've convinced me. You're quite the impassioned speaker today, Josh." He places the papers from the coffee table back in his briefcase, closes it and gets to his feet. "We'll meet about this tomorrow. I'll see where Ronna can clear us some time. Bram!" The last of this is directed at the half open door to his outer office.

Bram appears in the doorway. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm going over to the residence to see the kids before they go to bed, and I'll probably stay there and make some calls. Is there anything else I need to be reading for tomorrow?"

"No sir, I think you have everything."

"OK then. Have a good night, Bram, see you tomorrow."

"Thank you Mr President, good night, sir."

The President rounds the desk to his chair, where he is in the act of putting on his jacket when he catches sight of the clock on the wall and turns to his Chief of Staff. "Hey, wait, what are you still doing here?"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Donna's flight got in over an hour ago. Why aren't you at home cooking her dinner?"

"Donna…her flight? Josh falters, momentarily taken aback. "They don't get back until tomorrow, sir. Early tomorrow, that's what Lisa said."

The President frowns. "You've not spoken to Donna today?"

"No sir, her cell went to voice mail each time, and Lisa's did the same. I think she's tried phoning me a couple of times too, but I've been in meetings practically all day. Why?" he asks, suddenly unnerved by the expression on his boss' face. "Is she OK?"

The President nods, his frown relaxing into a smile. "Yes, she's fine. Or, at least, she was when I spoke to Helen at around two this afternoon. She said that Donna's been amazing, but that she was looking pretty exhausted at the function this morning so she sent her home early. The last thing on the schedule was a fund raiser they were attending tonight, so she thought she'd spare Donna five hours of making interesting conversation to people she's never met, while at the same time being forbidden to eat all the interesting things in the buffet. It seems that the promise of decent seafood is apparently what gets my wife through all this glad-handing." He breaks off as he notices the somewhat stricken expression on Josh's face. "I'm sorry, I thought you knew she was coming home early. I'd have come through and told you otherwise."

"No, it's fine, sir," Josh shakes his head. "You weren't to know."

"No, but I should have guessed." Matt says wryly. Then, when Josh makes as if to accompany him round to the residence, shoos him away. "Seriously, Josh, go! There'll always be some paperwork you can find to do, but there's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. Go see your wife."

Josh smiles, and steps back. "Thank you sir."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes sir. Good night Mr President."

Children lose their youth too soon

Watching war made us immune

And I've got all the world to lose

But I just want to hold on to the

Easy silence that you make for me

It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me

And the peaceful quiet you create for me

And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The lights are on when he lets himself in, and he can hear Simon and Garfunkel playing in the kitchen. Donna is standing with her back to him as he enters, but doesn't jump when he puts his arms round her from behind, and kisses the back of her neck. Instead, she puts her knife down on the board where she has been chopping mushrooms and turns round in arms to hug him back, but tighter.

They stand like that for a while, Josh breathing the faint scent of soap and roses and something else that is just Donna, and Donna breathing next to his open shirt collar like she's been holding her breath for ten minutes. Then she says something indistinctly into his neck, and he pulls back a little, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry. I should never have said what I said," She blinks hard and dashes a hand across her eyes, "and right before I left, too. I was sitting in the car with Helen on the way to the plane wishing I could take it back, and then I could never seem to get hold of you to make sure you were OK because I knew when I said it that it would stay with you, and I wanted it to at the time, but it was mean and," she takes another big breath, "I'm sorry."

Josh smiles and brushes her cheek with the back of his hand and kisses her. "It's OK," he says into her hair, "I'm sorry too. And you were right, by the way, I don't know when winning became more important than everything else, and I'm still not exactly sure why I was doing this job and it probably did have had something to do with Joanie, but I can tell you without a doubt why I'm doing it now." He pulls back, a hand on each of her shoulders. "The President said that the First Lady sent you home because you were looking so tired. Are you OK? Are you…both OK?"

Donna smiles, the first time he's seen her smile in five days. "Who, me and Mrs Santos?"

"Yeah, Donna, that's right, you and Mrs Santos. Unless of course that's a name for our baby that you've been toying with, in which case, I'm fairly sure the First Lady would rather we named her Helen."

Donna laughs, her hand going unconsciously to the bump that only those permitted to see her in her underwear would know was there. "We're fine. It was just a pretty full-on trip, and I guess I was looking like I was feeling it, because Mrs Santos wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. She practically drove me to the airport herself."

Josh pulls her close again with another deep breath. "I thought you must be sick."

"I'm sorry you found out like that." Donna looks up at him. "Every time I tried to phone, you were busy, and when I finally got through to Hester, you were in with the President. I'm not sick, I promise. Just in need of a good night's sleep."

"Yeah, C.J. said you were looking tired."

"You spoke to C.J.?"

"She phoned this afternoon."

"How is she?"

"Mainly concerned that you didn't mention me at all in the hour an a half you spent together. Apparently, that's not normal."

Donna smiles. "Isn't it? Damn." She kisses him again and turning back to the counter, picks up her knife. "I'm making pasta. That OK?"

"Sure, need a hand?"

"You could chop some basil."

Donna's Simon and Garfunkel CD has finished, but it's not on repeat. There's quiet in the kitchen as they make dinner together and then take it to the table to eat, where Donna has left the baby name book she picked up at the airport.

The easy silence that you make for me

It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me

And the peaceful quiet you create for me

And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The way you keep the world at bay for me

The way you keep the world at bay

This West Wing Dixie Chick songfic was written for my sister's birthday. If other people enjoy it, that's a lovely bonus.

Happy Birthday Mo xxx