A Leo McGarry Legacy
Post Election-Day 2
Donna's POV
One Shot
The election is over and life must go on, but I'm having a hard time getting Josh to realize both those facts.
I hung up the phone and took a deep breath before turning to face Josh who was waiting for the results of my call. "So?" he asked, anxious as always. You would think that with the election having been called and Senator Vinick having assured the Congressman—the President Elect—that he wouldn't be contesting the win, that he would relax, take a breath, maybe even sleep a little, but no. He's as wired as ever, and I haven't seen him touch a cup of coffee in almost five hours.
He is doing this because he knows that once he isn't focused on work he'll realize that Leo is really gone. I didn't like it, but he needed to be focused and so I let him tune out his emotions. For the moment.
"CJ says that the President wants the President-Elect and the First Lady In Waiting to join him for dinner with Abbey tomorrow night," I said.
"Mrs. B is coming down from the Manchester house? I thought she swore never to step foot in the White House ever again," Josh said. He had said the same thing before Ellie's wedding—as if Abbey Bartlet would miss such a huge event in her daughter's life.
"I think she wants to make sure that President Bartlet isn't alone right now," I said softly. Josh shot me a confused look. "Think about it, Josh. This is the last job he's ever going to do, and he went in knowing that there would be time limits, but do you think he ever really thought about what it would feel like today." I didn't add that he had just lost his best friend. Josh was all too aware of that fact, and it would only be cruel to keep hammering it home.
Josh nodded. "Okay. I'm going to tell… them," he said, nodding his head to the Santos family's suite. Josh, like everyone else, is a little unsure of how to address the couple. Eight years ago it was easy; Governor and Dr. Bartlet, and then President-Elect and Dr. Bartlet. Sir and ma'am work best, though, since they're fairly all-purpose, but there was no real confusion. The others will catch on faster than Josh and I will, I'm sure, because no matter how long we work with and for Matt Santos, Josiah Bartlet was our President and calling anyone else 'Mr. President' seems weird and, quite honestly, more than a little scary. "You'll be around when I'm done?" he asked, his carefully hidden vulnerability pushing through his wounded psyche.
"I'm going to my room, but I'll be up for a while," I replied. I reached out and pulled Josh into a tight embrace. "Come by whenever," I whispered, tenderly stroking his hair as he buried his face in my neck.
"Thank you," Josh murmured. He held on for another minute, composing himself, and then he pulled back and offered up a weak smile, one that barely showed me his dimples, and then he turned and headed off to the suite.
It was so weird, doing nothing. No calls to make, no polls to interpret, no one screaming for updates or watching TVs with unblinking eyes. After so many months of non-stop panic doing nothing felt completely wrong. I was so tired that I was sure that once I sat down I would be down for the count—despite what I had said to Josh I was really exhausted and my hotel room was rumoured to have a bed in it—I wouldn't know, I had only seen the room briefly when I changed my clothes after Josh and I made love. I knew that Josh would be a while, the protocol behind private dinners like this being extensive and mind numbing, so I decided to head downstairs and do some work that was definitely not in my job description but was something that needed to be done and, since everyone was pretty much drunk off their asses, I figured that I was the only person who would remember to do the things with a few glasses of Champaign in my system that most people wouldn't even think to do while stone cold sober.
Helen was understandably overwhelmed, and had slipped out of the suite and had begun wandering around the hotel in somewhat of a daze. "Mrs. Santos? How are you doing, ma'am?" I asked when she came into the banquet room where I had been making sure the cleanup crew knew to save packages of the confetti for souvenirs for the staff.
"I'm going to be the First Lady. I've been invited to the White House for dinner where there will only be six people—President Bartlet, Dr. Bartlet, CJ Cregg, Josh, and you. It probably seems like a normal day for you and Josh, but to me, this is insane."
"I was an assistant, Mrs. Santos. After President Bartlet was elected I had one non-party meal with him and it wasn't exactly a highlight for me," I said. Helen shot me a confused look, much like I had gotten when I told my mother about it while I was recovering after Gaza. No one understood how dining with the President was not a highlight of my life. "When Josh was shot, after the Town Hall thing in Roslyn, I took care of him. Some people, the Senior Staff, mostly, felt I wasn't taking care of myself while I was taking care of Josh, so I was summoned and the President and Abbey refused to let me leave until I had eaten a literal four course meal. I was too worried about Josh to even realize I was eating off of bone china with the leader of the free world and the First Lady."
Smiling at my candour, Helen sat down across the table from me. "I guess it's just overwhelming. I mean, I married a Marine pilot, and suddenly I'm three months from being the First Lady of the United States. I signed on to be a good military wife. I was just starting to get used to being a Congressman's wife…"
"Men have a tendency to throw a wrench into the works," I agreed, thinking about Josh and all the times he had turned my life inside out and upside down in the nine years that I'd known him.
"Why do we let them?" Helen pouted.
I was silent for a moment, considering her question, before I answered with the only answer there was to give.
"Because we can't imagine our lives without them."
"There is that," Helen agreed before shooting me a smile that told me she knew who I was thinking about. Not that it mattered, really, because there was no reason that people couldn't know about Josh and me, except that Josh and I hadn't talked about who we were to each other now that we'd given in to the feelings we had been fighting for so many years. Helen smiled softly. "I have to admit, when all the rumours were flying around after Roslyn, I thought that you and Josh were… more than boss and assistant," she admitted shyly.
"Everybody did," I smirked.
"It doesn't offend you?"
I shook my head. "It offended me when the Times ran pictures of me doing Josh's laundry along with my own when we had just passed a bill that spent over two billion of the taxpayer's dollars on healthcare and the picture got more column inches than the bill," I said. "Rumours never offended me. Nothing they said was true, and everyone whose opinion really mattered knew that. People talk and Washington is a company town, but very little of it means anything."
"So you didn't care when you became the butt of every horrible blonde assistant joke ever made?"
"I never said I didn't care, I just didn't let it affect my life. I didn't get my job by lying down on a desk and, while a lot of the time I was technically not exactly qualified to do the work I was doing, Josh and Leo always made sure that I knew that on the job training mattered a lot more than a formal education."
Helen smiled. "I couldn't believe it when I found out that you hadn't had years of training in PR," she admitted.
"In a way I did. Working with Sam, Toby, Josh, CJ, the President, and Leo for so long… I ended up getting educations from everywhere from Princeton and Duke to the Community College of New York to Harvard and Yale to UC Berkley to Notre Dame to Michigan State," I said. I made a mental note to make sure I didn't mention Toby's name at dinner with the President. According to Charlie the 'T' word was verboten lest you wished to bring the wrath of Josiah Bartlet down upon you.
Oblivious to my musings on how our 'family' had changed so much over the years, Helen spoke again. "And come January you're going to be the Deputy Communications Director to the President of the United States," Helen said.
This shocked me. I had been so focused on getting through the election that I had never considered what would happen after, once Matt Santos got to the White House. I knew it was pretty much a given that Josh would be Chief of Staff, and Lou could probably get Communications Director if she wanted it. But I had never thought about what I would do. I never thought about whether Matt would even want me. I thought that maybe I'd go back to school, get my degree, but Josh had pointed out that I would be incredibly bored sitting in a classroom after working on four Presidential campaigns, spending seven years in the White House, and acting as spokesperson for both Vice President Russell and the new President-Elect Matt Santos. I never even dreamed of being named Deputy Communications Director and yet Helen had just said that I was going to be, like it was a done deal.
"He didn't ask you yet?" Helen frowned, catching on to my shock and confusion.
"I didn't know I was even up for the job. I'm hardly qualified."
"Donna, you're the only person on the list," Helen said with a gentle smile. "Though apparently my husband has been horribly remiss in expressing that to you, which leads me to believe that he hasn't told anyone else where they're going to be working in January. Believe me I'll make sure that is taken care of first thing in the morning."
I was, quite honestly, struck dumb.
"Of course, Helen continued, "I guess I'm going to need a Chief of Staff. And I think you'd be perfect."
My heart was pounding and my head was spinning. The President-Elect and First Lady In Waiting both wanted me on their staff.
Helen smiled softly. "It's good to know that I'm not the only one whose life has been turned inside out tonight," she said before standing up. "You should get some sleep. We're flying to DC in the morning," she said in a motherly tone before heading for the ballroom door to go back to her suite.
I shook myself from my shock long enough to give a few final orders before going to the elevators to go up to my room. The elevator was thankfully empty and I got to my floor without running into anyone who worked to try to drag me into a party or something. I fumbled with my key card for a minute before getting it to work and I immediately shed my jacket and kicked my shoes in the general direction of the closet. I case a longing look at the bed but refused to give in to the allure of the pillows and blankets until I was sure that Josh would be alright. To distract myself from Josh, my debilitation exhaustion, and my emotional turmoil, I started tidying up my room.
When I had gotten back to my room earlier I had been giddy but cautious. Other than the exchange in the bathroom Josh and I hadn't talked about what it meant that we had slept together. The unspoken 'after the election' hung over me, and once again I found myself waiting for the Bartlet Administration to come to an end—a feeling I was sure would never be victim to again after quitting my job in the West Wing. That thought depressed me, took away the happy feeling I had had and all that was left was awkwardness and uncertainty.
Before we had slept together there was certainty; I knew that we would get together, the only question was when. Now, though, we had come together and Pandora's Box had opened and all the evil questions and doubts and fears came flying out. And, sure, like Pandora, I found hope at the bottom of the Box, but with all the other crap it was hard to see the hope.
I finished cleaning up and then curled up at one end of the love seat with the book I'd been carrying around since the beginning without having the chance to even glance at it since I stuffed it into the bottom of my suitcase when I packed for the campaign trail.
Four chapters later I was pulled from my book by a knock at the door.
Josh looked worse than when I'd seen him last. His suit looked like he'd slept in it—and if he had slept at all in the last three days I'd be sure that was the case—and his hair was doing the crazy standing-on-end thing that it tended to do after he ran his fingers through it too many times. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears, both of joy at his accomplishments and grief at his losses. His skin was pale from so many months in conference rooms and on planes and busses, and the dark circles under his eyes were developing dark circles of their own.
He looked so broken, standing there with the weight of the world on his shoulders and the prospect of doing what he was born to do without Leo standing behind him to catch him when he falls. Without a word I pulled him into my arms, offering up a prayer to whatever greater being out there that had gotten us as far as we'd come that I would have the strength to hold Joshua Lyman together once again.
I was a little out of practise at comforting Josh, but it had always been about instinct with us anyway so I didn't allow myself to think about how long it had been since I had been the one that Josh turned to when the world started spinning backwards on him.
"What are we going to do without him?" Josh asked after a few minutes.
"What he would want us to," I said, going with my gut, which Leo had always told me was one of my greatest strengths. "Live our lives. Run the country. Remember him, both the good and the bad, because editing for content is not Leo's way." I kissed Josh's forehead before pulling back just enough so that I could look into his eyes. They were cloudy with the tears of a man who had gotten everything he ever wanted and lost everything he'd had before in one fell swoop. "Leo wouldn't want his death to send you into a crisis of faith, Josh. Not in politics, not in life, and most definitely not in yourself. And I'm not going to let you wallow when you and I both know that Leo would be the first one there to kick your butt back into line."
Josh smiled softly despite his grief. "Thank you," he whispered, pulling himself together enough to realize that we were still standing in my doorway with the door open and a celebration breaking up downstairs. We rectified that quickly, a Do Not Disturb sign and a locked door protecting us and keeping us together, a united front against our precarious mixture of grief and joy.
"I talked to Mallory a minute ago. She wants me to help her with his hotel tomorrow when we get back to DC," Josh said softly as I helped him out of his suit jacket.
"Are you up for it?" I asked as I tossed the jacket onto a chair. It was too wrinkled to worry about hanging it up.
"I don't know if I'll ever be up for it, but Mal needs me," Josh said as I went to work on his tie.
I nodded, knowing how close Josh and Mallory had always been. Sometimes I wondered, considering how well Josh and Mallory knew each other, and how well Josh and Sam knew each other, and how much time Mallory spent helping out on the first Bartlet for America campaign during her summer break, how Sam could have not known that Mallory was Leo's daughter when he let off a rant to her about all the things that had gone wrong in his world including his 'accidentally sleeping with a call girl'. "You're a good man, Joshua," I said as I tossed his tie toward his jacket.
"But I'll never be him," Josh said sadly.
"No, you won't," I agreed. Josh looked at me like I'd just told him he was the kind of person to kick a wounded puppy and I quickly qualified my response. "Leo had demons, maybe more than we'll ever know about, and he was still the amazing man who got you to leave the prohibitive nominee for the presidency to work for a man with numbers in the low double digits, both because of and in spite of his demons. And in a lot of ways you're like Leo, so much so that it's a little scary. But you'll never be Leo McGarry because your demons are of a completely different breed and you are the man that you are because of and in spite of your demons." I unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it off of his body before continuing. "You have a big, beautiful heart, Joshua Lyman, and you throw yourself body and soul into everything that you have ever taken on. It will be tough, doing this without Leo there to guide you, but remember who taught you everything you know. Remember who told you things that Harvard and Yale would never think to teach you. Remember that Leo was the man who jumped in the hole after you because he knew the way out. Remember who taught you that your ideas are never too crazy or idealistic to put out there but that sometimes the world is just not ready for them yet." I framed his face with my hands, waiting until I was sure he was listening to me before I spoke again. "And, if all else fails, remember that I'm going to be walking this road beside you and that I have eight years of experience in picking up the pieces you leave behind."
Josh chuckled at that, pulling me into a crushing embrace. "Can… I don't know… can I just… hold you?" he asked, unsure if his request was way out of line.
"You never have to ask, Joshua," I replied, pressing my lips to the curve of his neck. "I'm going to get changed. Why don't you get ready out here? I'll be quick, I promise," In continued, the last part added when I saw a shadow of fear come over his face. Josh nodded and I grabbed a light tank top and a pair of boxers before sliding into the bathroom to change and take care of my usual bedtime rituals.
When I returned Josh was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he stared at his watch, rubbing his thumb over the face tenderly. "Josh?" I ventured.
"He gave this to me… after his first heart attack. He made a joke about you not always being around to keep me on time, especially since you were going to be off work for a few months," Josh explained, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. "He said that you were right, that my watched sucked, and that with him gone and you out and all the work that was going to fall on my shoulders until the President got a chance to replace him I would need a watch that worked.
That sounded like Leo. Too bad no watch could keep Joshua Lyman on time. "It's a nice watch," I said.
"Didn't help keep me on time," Josh said.
I smiled. Our connection had slowly but surely been coming back to us as we worked together again. It was nice to have that psychic connection thing back. "Even I couldn't do that half the time," I reminded him. "It looks old," I commented, turning my attention back to the watch.
"It was his brother's. Patrick. He was older than Leo… three years older, I think. They both flew plans in the war… Patrick was shot down two days before his tour was over."
"The flag Leo had in his office?" I asked. I had often wondered about that flag.
"Yeah," Josh nodded distractedly. "Patrick was the one who introduced Leo and my dad. Patrick was the one who introduced my mom and dad," he said softly.
"Sounds like quite the successful matchmaker," I said.
Josh nodded. "She cried, you know. When I called her." Our connection wasn't back in full force yet, and I was having a tough time keeping up with Josh's thoughts at the moment, but I was pretty sure he was talking about his mother. "I've never heard her cry before. By the time I got there after my dad died she had pulled herself together and if she cried she didn't do it around me," he continued. "She didn't cry after Joanie died, either. Dad broke down, especially at the funeral, but mom was always… so together. But then I told her about Leo and… she lost it." He looked down at the watch again. "She begged me to say it wasn't true, that I was lying to her—playing a cruel joke on her."
"They've been friends for how long? Fifty-something years? Now that Leo's gone you're all she has left."
"That is something to cry over," Josh chuckled bitterly. He sighed heavily. "I didn't see her when we were in Florida I didn't even realize that our hotel was ten blocks from her place until, like, five states later—which, by the way, was almost average for turnaround on my returning her phone calls. What the hell kind of son am I?"
"The kind that gets good men elected. Your candidate has gone from 'dark horse' to 'Mr President' for two terms already and at least one more with an option on four more years after that. That's sixteen years of the Leader of the Free World being the guy that you worked your ass off for. Your mother understands, Josh. You know she does."
Josh nodded. "I still feel like a crappy son."
"That's 'cause your mother is the master of the guilt trip," I said, rubbing my hand over his back soothingly. "You need to get some sleep—we both do."
"I don't think I'll be able to."
"Then just rest. Get under the covers and put your head on the pillow and just rest. I'm going to wrap my arms around you like after Roslyn and I'm going to be here when the sun come sup and we have to leave for DC," I said as I eased Josh back until he was laying down on the left hand side of the bed. He allowed me to help him under the covers and his eyes tracked me warily as I moved around the room turning off the lights and making sure that both my cell phone and laptop were plugged in so that they would be fully charged for the morning. I don't think Josh blinked until I lifted up the covers and slid into bed. I cradled Josh in my arms, his head pillowed on my breast, his ear pressed to my heart. I had long ago found that the steady beating of my heart could quell even the most vivid of night terrors.
"I… I know now isn't the time for this," Josh said as I fiddled with the covers, "but I do want to talk about what happened with us today… and last night."
I smiled softly. "We will, Josh. Now close your eyes and relax. I'm not going anywhere," I promised. Already I could feel the seductive pull of sleep, but I fought it off. I had never fallen asleep before Josh before and there was no way I was about to start when he needed me the most.
ww
The few hours of sleep that we managed to get weren't very restful. Josh tossed and turned, his body still in election-mode and his emotions running too high for his body to relax enough to give in to sleep, and I tried my best to soothe him but I knew that there was just too much going on in Josh's head for sleep to come so I simply did my best to get him to relax a little so that he didn't crash in the middle of an important meeting like the one he and the President-Elect had with President Bartlet and CJ when we got back to DC. If we had been in his room I would have given him a sleeping pill, but I had stopped carrying around his assorted medications—something I regretted since I don't even know if he's been taking his heart pills.
Some time during the night we had changed positions so that Josh was spooned up behind me, one of his legs between mine, one of his arms under my neck and the other draped around my waist, and I smiled at how good it felt to be in Josh's arms until I remembered why I was in his arms and why, after having made love to each other, we were waking up more or less fully clothed. It sucked, too, 'cause we didn't get to wake up in this position after having sex—we didn't even get to wake up together. We might have, though, had I not been so nervous that I had to get out of bed and check the news sites in order to keep myself from forcing Josh to have 'the talk'.
My alarm went off and Josh groaned into the back of my head as I pulled away to turn it off, the beeping less welcome by my ears than usual. Josh pulled me back into his arms, holding me close as he woke up slowly. I wanted to let him sleep longer, but we had a flight to DC to catch and there was still a lot to do.
"Morning," Josh mumbled sleepily.
"Morning," I replied softly. I managed to get his arms to loosen around me enough so that I could roll over and face him. He looked so adorable in the near-dawn light. All bed-headed and stubbly. If I put some imagination behind it I could pretend that his eyes were red from lack of sleep and not from the hours of grief-filled tears that had fallen down his less than tanned cheeks. "How much sleep did you get?"
Josh shrugged as best he could. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "How long until our flight?"
"Three hours. We need to leave the hotel in an hour, though."
"Why?" Josh asked, barely awake.
"Because we're travelling with the First Family In Waiting," I said. It sounded good. Matt, Helen, Miranda, and Peter Santos were the First Family In Waiting. In January they would be the First Family. Other than the scary thought of what the Residence would look like with two children under ten living in it, the picture was pretty great all around.
I was thinking about the kids fighting over bedrooms and the crayon drawings they would leave on the walls when a thought struck me and suddenly all I could think about was how Miranda and Peter had taken the news of Leo's death. He had become a cool uncle to them—Leo hadn't liked the thought of having surrogate grandchildren that were the kids ages, apparently he had a tough enough time dealing with the fact that Mallory was a mother—since he joined the ticket. Peter liked hearing Leo's stories from when he was flying and Miranda always wanted Uncle Leo to read her a bedtime story when they were in the same city at her bedtime. Leo, for his part, had been more than happy to oblige. I think it might have had something to do with his guilt over not really being there for Mal when she was growing up.
"I guess I should go get my stuff packed," Josh said, drawing me out of my thoughts about how the kids were taking all the changes that had happened to their lives in the last twenty-four hours. Matt and Helen were going to have huge, sweeping changes to adjust to, but they at least have some understanding of what's going on. Miranda and Peter are just kids and suddenly they've got people with guns following them everywhere and the press are trying to get their pictures and they don't have a context for what is happening. It was tough enough for Liz and Ellie and Zoey, and they are all old enough to understand what being the President's children means. At least the Secret Service wouldn't have to worry about the kids going to night clubs, though. The biggest party risks they would have to worry about would be glow bowling parties and slumber parties in the Residence. "Thank you for being here last night," Josh whispered, resting his forehead against mine.
"Hey, like it or not you're stuck with me," I said with a soft smile. "Stay here while I pack and then I'll help you with your room," I offered.
I really don't want to leave Josh alone. He got a lot of stuff off his chest last night but we've barely begun to graze the tip of the ice berg of his emotional turmoil and I don't want him to be alone until I'm sure he's not going to start thinking dangerous thoughts that lead to a complete emotional breakdown. It's times like these that I really miss Sam. He and I could tag-team Josh so that he's watched twenty-four-seven and he'd probably never even notice. But Sam is in California being a lawyer and, though I'm sure Josh will eventually try to get him to join the Administration, he's not doing me any good right now. If I wasn't so sure that Otto would cave under the pressure of Josh—because, honestly, there are, like, ten people in the world who don't—I would enlist him to watch out for Josh's mental and emotional well-being. I will find someone to help me on that front, though, because I stopped living my life for Josh Lyman when I quit my job at the White House and, as much as I love him, I refuse to become the simpering lapdog that I once was.
"Mind if I steal your shower while you pack?" Josh asked.
I smiled. "Not at all," I said. The morning before Election Day was the last time he bathed and, with all the stress—and all the sex—Josh is beginning to get a little on the rank side. "Give me your key, I'll run to your room and get you a change of clothes so you don't have to get into that suit again," I said, casting a glance over at the discarded clothing that, I feared, would never be the same again. Which is sad because it's a good suit. One of Josh's better ones, really. Hopefully Zuzu will be able to work his magic on it when we get back to DC—a thought that reminds me to tell whoever Josh ends up hiring as his assistant about Zuzu the miracle dry-cleaner who can get an entire suit cleaned and pressed in half an hour, less if you get there between ten and twelve since he doesn't get really busy until people start dropping their dry cleaning off until their lunch breaks. When I quit I left a two-inch binder with Margaret, lime green and carefully indexed and organized into everything from his favourite foods to what the different glints in his eyes mean to how to prevent disaster in the press—for example, don't let Josh brief the Press Corps—to things that certain people know about him and things he knows about certain people—or things I know about certain people that Josh never had a need to be informed of—that would help or hinder depending on the legislation at hand. An in depth How-To on dealing with Josh for whoever took over after I left—I actually started compiling it during the campaign for my own use but I soon realized that I didn't need the cheat sheet to know what was going on in the head of Josh Lyman, and over the years I added to it. All of his doctors numbers are on the first page, along with his mother's name and number in Florida, and I also left my personal cell phone number there in case there was anything that Josh needed me and only me for.
I know, I know, I suck at cutting the cord.
WW
We managed to get checked out of the hotel without much problem. Mallory had one of the interns pack up Leo's room, saying that she couldn't be in that room. I would have offered to help her but the truth was that I was pretty sure that I couldn't be in that room, either.
The majority of the staff was staying in Houston to wrap things up. Edie was going to take care of the Congressional office and Ronna was going to come to DC in a few days after she finished clearing out the war room. Bram was going with us right away, as was Otto, and Lou was headed off to parts unknown because, as she told us many times, she campaigned, she didn't govern. No one was entirely sure what Annabeth was going to do, but she was coming to DC with us and would stick around at least until after the funeral.
Helen opted to come with us, leaving the kids with their grandmother so they wouldn't miss school. She mentioned that they didn't really understand why Leo wasn't going to be around anymore. I nodded when she told me that, remembering when I was little and my parents tried to explain to me why we weren't making our usual mid-July trip to visit Grandma Mary in Miami anymore.
"Last time we'll have to fly on anything but Air Force One for a while," Josh commented as we buckled ourselves into our seats on the Santos for America plane that still looked like a disaster area from being our war room for the past two weeks.
"Thank god," I said, a small smile showing through. "I miss those big seats and wide hallways… and the M&M's," I grinned. CJ periodically sent me a supply of the Air Force One M&M's, which somehow tasted better than the ones from the 7-Eleven.
"I forgot about the M&M's," Josh smiled as he rested his head back against the plush seat. His hand reached out, his fingers tangling with mine. "How long is this flight?" he asked as he closed his eyes.
"Two hours, fifty seven minutes," I replied.
Josh nodded. "Can we talk?" he asked, opening his eyes and looking at me intently.
"About…?"
"Us."
"Oh," I said, surprised. He had expressed his determination to talk about the as-yet amorphous 'us' sooner rather than later before falling asleep the night before but I thought that he meant in DC at his place, not on a plane with the next President of the United States and his wife sitting across the aisle from us. "If you want," I said, somewhat nervously.
"I want," Josh nodded. He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine briefly. I wasn't entirely sure I was comfortable with public displays of affection, especially in front of our boss, but the feeling of his lips against mine was too good to argue with. "I want to have a relationship with you, Donna," he said, his voice a low whisper, presumably for privacy. "I want the whole cliché 'get married, have kids, grow old together' life with you. We've waited almost nine years already and I understand if you don't want to start something when I'm about to embark on four to eight years as Chief of Staff and you're about to start something huge, too, but I need you to know that I'm ready and I don't intend to let anything get in the way of being with you if you say that you want to be with me."
I shook my head. "I want this. I want the cliché life with you, Josh," I said, praying that the tears that I could feel burning in the corners of my eyes weren't about to start falling. "I'm just… the way this started… I need to be sure that we don't…"
"Donna, what is it?" Josh asked, squeezing my hand and leaning in closer to me as I struggled to find a way to say what I felt.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself slightly before speaking. "I don't want to enter into a relationship with you because our emotions are running so high. I've waited for eight years to be with you and, though I don't want to scare you, I have to say that this, you and me, is it for me. I don't want this to be about us reaching for each other because we're familiar and safe."
"I'm anything but safe, Donna. You've seen my hate mail—more people want to kill me than ever."
"That's not the kind of safe I was talking about. If I wanted that kind of safe I'd be in the private sector married to a teacher or something with worries like a mortgage and whose parents we'll spend the holidays with. I was talking about the kind of safe like… like home. Like a teddy bear or the blankie you had as a kid. Safe as in security," I said.
"We're each other's baby blankies," Josh frowned.
"I'm just saying that even though we had a few tough times we've always been there for each other no matter what," I said rationally. Josh sat back, turning away from me. I could tell I had hurt him and I hated that, but I had to make sure that Josh's feelings for me were the same as mine for him. "Josh, don't pull away from me," I implored. "Nothing will ever work between us if you pull away from me every time things get sticky."
"You just accused me of turning to you because I've known you for a long time and I think you're safe so naturally I would have sex with you when everything starts spinning out of control," Josh hissed. "If that were the truth…" he shook his head. "Donna, if what happened with us at the hotel were just because things were emotional and I was strung out on stress and exhaustion… my recovery after Roslyn. That Christmas. MS. Mrs. Landingham. Sam leaving. Hoynes resigning. Gaza. Leo's first heart attack. You leaving the White House. Me leaving the White House. This entire campaign. If my wanting to be with you was just about my level of emotion it would have happened between us a long time ago."
I tried to regulate my breathing, tried to stay calm.
Tried not to cry.
Though I had accused Josh of wanting to be with me because of emotions not of the flowers-and-candy variety, the truth was that my own emotions were running high, trampling all over me like a herd of something that stampedes in herds would, and as good as I was at taking care of Josh in times of crisis I have to admit that I really suck at taking care of myself. Maybe that's why I focus my attention on Josh when life gets emotionally trying. If I'm worried about how he is dealing with a situation I can't worry about how I'm going to deal with the situation myself.
Yet another layer of that infamous Donna Moss misdirection, I guess.
"Maybe this isn't the right place to talk about this," Josh decided.
"No, Josh, please," I said quickly. I knew that if we put this talk off now it was likely that we would never get around to it. "I want to talk about this. And I was wrong to say what I said. I know that what we are to each other is more than what I made it out to be. I'm just… this has been coming for years and I always thought that when the time came that we were both ready to take the next step… it would be as natural as everything else between us has been. I didn't think that it would be… like this."
"You expected flowers and candy?" Josh asked softly.
I shook my head. "The way we came together was perfect, Josh. It wasn't shameful, it wasn't a mistake, and I have no regrets about that night other than when I blew you off when you wanted to talk. I just… I needed to get some distance, to figure out how being together was going to work with the changes that were coming our way."
"So… you went for coffee," Josh said. "You never bring me coffee," he added softly, his fingers searching mine out yet again. I held on tight, this time refusing to let him even think about pulling away.
"It wasn't intended to be a sign that our relationship was changing. I think the sex was a good indicator of that," I said. "It did end up rather poetic, though. Or it would have if I hadn't come back to find that your room had become the War Room."
Josh smiled softly. "We can try the whole 'first morning after' thing again, if you want. Without the staff dropping by."
I shook my head. "It wouldn't be 'us' if something like that hadn't happened," I said.
"I hate that that's true," Josh said, groaning softly. "So… we're really going to do this, huh?"
"Looks that way," I said with a smile.
"Leo would be happy," Josh decided. I looked at him oddly. "He knew how I felt about you… probably before I did. Actually, I think everyone knew how I felt about you before I did, but I'm pretty sure that Leo figured it out first."
"He knew you when you were still in the womb, Joshua. Odds were pretty good that he would figure things like that out before, say, Toby," I said.
Josh smiled softly, his eyes getting misty with memories and emotion. "When Lou hired you he told me that I had to get over myself because you were damned good at your job and I was lucky as hell that you stuck around for as long as you did so I had no reason to be pissed at you for leaving."
"If I hadn't left Vinick would be President-Elect right now and we'd be working for a lame duck administration that is about to start a Transition to a Republican administration," I pointed out. "Russell would never have been able to beat Vinick and you know it. And you would have never left President Bartlet if I had stayed."
"I'd argue with that if it wasn't so pathetically true," Josh said. "I guess the country has you to thank, then. Or me, for being such an ass to you for eight years."
"You weren't always an ass," I said. "Though, admittedly, you ass-ish tendencies are a little easier to point to." Josh swatted at my arm, smiling a true Josh Lyman smile, dimples and all. I smiled back, and then I quickly grew serious again. What I was about to tell him was not something to be joked about. "You wiped the slate clean when you came to Germany. You didn't stop for anything. You looked like crap and I'm still sure that it was your breath that woke me up, but you didn't stop for anything and that meant the world to me. It still does."
"There was nowhere else I could be," Josh said emphatically before pressing his lips to my temple and looping his arm around my shoulders. The move surprised me, but what surprised me more was that I didn't care about the public display of affection. I had never been good with them, never been comfortable with them. But with Josh it was different.
With Josh everything was different.
"You know, as far as the campaign is concerned, you're no longer on the payroll," Josh said after a minute, "and I know you sublet your apartment to someone from… judiciary?"
"Treasury."
"Right. Anyway, you're apartment is currently occupied and I know how much you've been making for the last nine years so I'm pretty sure you can't afford a hotel room in the District for the next ten weeks—not to mention that you're probably as sick of them as I am by now," Josh continued. "If you think it's too fast or something, I understand, but… I've got room ay my place for two… and we've already done the living together thing and we both came away relatively unscathed."
"It was the scathing that led to the living together," I pointed out, my free hand instinctively moving to cover the scar left from the white supremacist's bullet.
Josh nodded. "True, but there was no further scathing other than the time that I was stupid and didn't listen to you and therefore I think we can call it a success. It will be better this time, too."
"Because of the sex."
"That's a big part of it, but I was thinking about the fact that there won't be Rules this time," Josh said.
I shot him the same look I had shot everyone else when they insulted my Rules. Josh had been on the receiving end more than anyone else, though Toby had run a close second—his obsession with attacking guns and hate crimes was something that had started to concern me, which is saying a lot because I barely had time to worry about myself let alone anyone who wasn't Josh.
"There will be Rules?" Josh asked meekly.
"Yes," I nodded.
"How harsh are they going to be this time?" Josh asked. I shot him the other look I had developed back in the post-Roslyn days—the one for when people said my rules were dumb. "I mean what joyous restrictions can I look forward to in my near future," Josh back-pedalled.
I knew he was just teasing me, bringing the banter like we always did, but the emotional toll of the past few days was catching up with me. "If you want to have a near future to look forward to you'll get over the fact that I restricted things like the amount of work you could do and the channels you could watch on TV when you know that I was trying to keep your blood pressure within shouting distance of a healthy range. I've been getting grief from everyone about my rules since I came up with them, and that's fine because they were necessary to keep you alive, but it was seven years ago, Joshua. Get over it already," I said, my tone harsher than intended. I didn't mean to get so angry but the truth was that I was sick of it. While I don't think he had ever really understood how greatly what he thinks of me affects me—in fact, I'm sure he doesn't know because I have spent a lot of time and energy making sure that he doesn't know how what he might think of as benign comments make my heart shatter a little bit more—it seems like he is starting to see that what he says actually means something to me.
I hope.
Josh's eyes softened and filled with concern. "Donnatella," he whispered, apologetic, letting my full name hang in the air between us, a balm to my emotional wounds that I trusted only him to mend.
Some people thought it was strange, like so many other things about our relationship, that we both tended to use each other's full names as an endearment, but neither Josh nor I cared. We became friends under such intense circumstances and our feelings developed under constant scrutiny—mostly from our coworkers who were terrified of the thought of Josh Lyman finally sleeping with his blonde assistant—that, other than a few times where we were being sarcastic or had slipped up in excitement, terms of endearment were not only frowned upon but tended to bring the wrath of CJ Cregg down upon us.
Opening his mouth to say something, Josh got a 'uh' sound out before the President-Elect interrupted, asking Josh to join him in the office so they could start talking about what would happen once they got to DC. Josh shot me a pleading look and I took pity on him. I know the hour, I know the nature of the job, and I can accept that, for the next four to eight years, Josh is going to be about the job first. I wouldn't have it any other way. "Go. We can talk later," I said, wondering if the President-Elect had witnessed much of our interaction. He tended to the ignorant on the personal lives of his staff—the debacle with Amy early in the campaign when she screwed with Josh yet again being a great example—but he wasn't so far out of things that he didn't see what was right in front of him. Plus Helen is a very perceptive woman and I have no doubt that she knows how I feel about Josh, even though we've only known each other for a few weeks.
As Josh got up and I glanced around the place and realized that there was almost no chance that our conversation, emotions and all, had been as private it should have been.
I decided that the safest option for me would be to feign sleep. No one would find it hard to believe that I was exhausted, probably because I really and truly was, and I just prayed that there wasn't anything pressing enough going on to warrant waking me.
The peace and quiet I so desperately wanted lasted only ten minutes, but when I was woken from my feigned slumber I didn't mind so much because it was Mallory so I knew it wouldn't be work related.
"I didn't mean to wake you," Mallory said softly.
"I was faking," I admitted. "How are you doing?" I asked gently.
Mallory shrugged. "Numb… I guess. I was ready for this two years ago… for most of my adult life, really. But the last few months… he had, like, a new purpose. He was going to his doctors, he was taking his medications, he was eating better, Annabeth was making sure he was taking naps when he started getting run down… this wasn't supposed to happen," she said, her voice shaky the way it got when she was about to break down. I had only heard her so upset twice before. The first time was when Josh was shot, though I was too upset myself to really worry about what other people were feeling at the time. The second time was the day after the Democratic Convention when she had found out that her father was going to fun for Vice President of the United States despite the fact that his health was less than stable when he didn't have a Mount Everest sized weight on his shoulders. I'm still not sure why she called me; she knew I was working for Russell and that Josh and I were barely making eye contact since I left the White House.
"He was really happy on the trail, Mallory," I said soothingly. "He loved the campaign trail."
"I know," Mallory nodded. "He loved working with you and Josh again, too. Ever since the first Bartlet for America campaign… there's been a light in his eyes. Josh and CJ and Sam and Toby… you and Carol and Bonnie and Ginger and Margaret… that geeky guy that replaced Sam when he left... you guys all kept him young. I wanted you to know that. I don't know if there will be time to talk later… with the funeral and everything… I just wanted you to know how thankful I am for all of you for making the last eight to nine years what I'm pretty sure were the best of his life."
"That is really sweet, Mallory," I said, choked up. "But I'm sure the fact that he got to spend time with you and become a grandfather had something to do with how happy he was."
Mallory smiled. "He was such the proud grandpa," she agreed.
"Never went anywhere without a picture or ten," I said with a smile. The baby was truly loved by his grandfather and it was a tragedy that he would never remember Leo outside of stories and photographs. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the baptism."
"That's alright. He loves the outfit you sent. Or, well, I love how he looks in it, so therefore he loves it and wears it all the time," Mallory said with a blushing smile. "Josh is really getting into the 'Uncle Josh' thing. He's already fully outfitted my kid with the latest in baby-Democrat fashion."
"I hope he didn't threaten to ritually sacrifice any stuffed elephants in sight."
"Only once and I don't think he was entirely sober at the time," Mallory replied. "There is, however, a growing family of stuffed donkeys filling my house."
I grinned. If the kid ended up voting Republican it wouldn't be for lack of brainwashing on the part of his Uncle Josh. Since I joined the Santos campaign I had been with Josh to four different toy stores in four different states and each time he had found a donkey of some sort to send to Mallory in DC. "Josh thinks of you as a sister, you know. And not in the 'replacement for Joanie, I have to protect her' way that he probably did while you two were growing up. I know it meant a lot to him when you asked him to be godfather. Even though his spiritual guidance will lean more towards the glory of a Democratic majority and the wondrous miracle that is the New York Mets than the traditional."
"There are worse altars to worship at," Mallory said. She smiled at me softly. "Thank you. For… you know. Taking my mind off of things… for a little while. It's good to feel like it won't always be this way," she said honestly.
"Hey, we never really got to know each other that well, but any time you need to talk I'm here. Well, not 'here' here, but I'm around and I'm a pretty good listener," I said. "Plus I can spot a shoe sale a mile away."
"How are you with clothes?" Mallory asked.
"I'm a girl on a budget who has had to buy maybe forty ball gowns in the last eight years while still getting suits regularly dry cleaned. I can find a fifty-percent-off DNKY at forty paces."
"Impressive. We should go shopping for gowns together, you know, if I end up going to the Inaugural Ball…Balls," Mallory said.
I smiled softly. "I'd like that. And I think you should come, at least to a few. Maybe not all of them because I'm pretty sure we're reaching double digits this time around, but the first three are usually pretty good, and very few people manage to get well and truly drunk until at least the fifth."
"Unless they have Josh's inability to hold alcohol," Mallory said, grinning.
"Ah, yes, his sensitive system, I know it well," I nodded.
We sat quietly for a minute before Mallory spoke again. "You're going to watch him, right? I mean, not to be presumptuous or anything, but you're going to look out for him, aren't you?" she asked nervously.
Josh and I hadn't finished our conversation, and truth be told I wasn't sure we ever really would, but I knew that no matter what we were going to be together and that we were going to take care of each other. We were equals now, partners. The way we were always meant to be.
I closed my eyes and remembered that horrible Christmas Eve. I had been standing just out of sight, waiting nervously for Josh to come out of his session with Dr. Keyworth, and I had heard Leo talking to Josh the way a father talked to his son.
"This guy's walking down a street, when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep. He can't get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up "Hey you! Can you help me out?" The doctor writes him a prescription, throws it down the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up "Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it's me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole! Our guy says "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here!" and the friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."
Josh and I have both been in that hole before, and we're probably both going to fall in again. But there's one thing in the world that I know for sure, and that's how we're going to deal with the joys and pitfalls of life.
"We're going to take care of each other," I said firmly.
THE END