Disclaimers:
Based wholly or partly on characters and situations created by Aaron Sorkin, John Wells, NBC, Warner Brothers Television Production Inc., and who knows what others. PG: An unauthorized work of speculative fiction. Parental discretion is advised. Do not distribute for profit or without notification please. Not to be taken internally. No user serviceable parts inside. Made in the USA. I wouldn't stop for red lights. Strongest fan fiction available without a prescription. May cause dizziness, dry mouth or nausea. Do not read my fanfics while driving, drinking or operating heavy machinery. I'm ReverendKilljoy and I approved this disclaimer.
Note: Early season six, around "Hubbert Peak." Spoilers for the whole danged series if you think about it.
W.W.
"Donna!"
"Josh!"
Josh looked up from the spot on the wall where he had been staring for the last hour or so. This was new. Donna teased him about his yelling, bellowing, shouting, and generally making loud noises for her attention, but she always came in the room to do it. Simply shouting back from her desk, that was new.
He got up, and went to lean in the doorway. She was at her desk, typing something, and had made no move to come in.
"So, we're dispensing with the part of your job where you actually do things for me? That should free up a lot of your day." He hoped to sound cute. He hoped for the banter.
"I can imagine." She wasn't going to play. He looked, and he didn't see her crutches anywhere. She seemed to be getting around okay, but he'd been afraid to ask too much about how she was healing after Gaza.
"Can you come in for a minute, please?" As much as he missed the game, he still had things to say.
"Just a minute. Is this important?" Whatever she was working on, she was saving and printing. "Because this is important." She nodded at her papers, still not turning around.
When all else fails, go with honesty. If noting else, it's the easiest thing to remember later. He'd heard Toby say that when he was sounding wise, or drunk.
"This is actually pretty critical. I'll wait till you're done."
He went in, and sat. He thought about trying to get some work done, but instead he just sat. Waiting for Donna, Josh was in limbo. He thought about all the physics he'd read up on after he was shot. What was the limbo thing? Schrödinger's cat. Seal the cat in the box, and set off a radioactive… something. Anyway, take a 50/50 chance the cat lives. So, is the cat alive, or not? Neither. According to Schrödinger: it was a quantum cat, in a state of flux, not dead or a live till you open the box. Josh couldn't do the math, but he saw the beauty of quantum physics- he was the cat. Not alive, not dead.
"Just waiting for someone to open the box," he said softly to himself.
"You're talking to yourself again, Josh." Donna was leaning on his doorframe, head cocked to the side, regarding him.
"Yeah," he said sheepishly, "I keep telling myself to stop that. Close the door?"
She closed the door and smoothed her jacket front, looking at him calmly.
"Please, sit down." He waved to the chair across from his desk.
"Josh," she said carefully, "am I being fired?"
"What?" He rocked back in his chair, looking for words. "Why would, what? No, no you aren't being fired? Why would I fire you?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "You used to fire me all the time. You haven't lately, so I just wondered."
He smiled. "I tried to fire you, Donna. But you'd just say 'impervious!' and shrug me off. If I ever thought you'd actually go I'd never have fired you."
She nodded. "So that's why you never fire me any more. You're afraid I'd go."
"This conversation is surreal. I don't want to fire you, I want to talk to you, about something important." He was trying to remember where he had been going with this.
He started over. "There's a seat opening up in Connecticut." This wasn't going like it had in his head.
She waited. "I don't understand," she said when he just kept looking at her.
"I've been talking to Matt Santos, trying to get him to run again. He keeps telling me about this seat opening up in Connecticut." He rubbed his hand through his hair, which of course made it even wilder despite it's relatively short length.
"So, you're thinking about the next election." She looked like someone had stolen her cat. Well, she didn't have a cat. She looked like someone had given her a cat, and then it had been stolen.
"I am. I've been thinking what it would be like, what would have to change in my life, running as the candidate instead of the candidate's enforcer." He looked at the pad on his desk, and tore off the top page. He handed it over to her.
"Lyman for Congress," she read. "You could do this. You could be a good congressman, Josh."
"We could do it, you mean." He tried a grin, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the paper he had handed her, and she reached underneath it to hand him the paper she had been printing.
"No, you could do it, Josh. I'm resigning. I don't want to do this any more. Not for another election, and how many more, every two years? I don't want to do it any more."
He looked, and got so far as "I regret that I must tender my resignation from my position as Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff…" All the breath went out of him.
"But, Donna… how would I…" He closed his eyes. When he opened them, she was looking at him, face impassive but eyes moist. "None of this would be any fun without you, Donna."
"Fun? Has it been fun, Josh, for a long time now? I don't know. After Rosslyn I thought... well, and after the second inaugural. Anyway, look at the President. He needed Delores Landingham, needed her every day as much as you ever needed me. But when she, when she was gone, he went on. We all did. You will, when I leave."
"I can't." He was going to say more, but that was enough. "I don't want to."
"But it will always be about you Josh, and what you want. I tried, I really did, but I can't do it. I can't be the one who runs your life and doesn't live in it. I'm not the woman she was, Josh, and I'm not going to be your Delores Landingham." She stood suddenly, and turned to go.
He was up behind her at once, and as she paused to collect herself at the doorway, he reached past her to put a hand on the door. When she turned, they were standing very close. With her heels on she was as tall as him. With her better posture, she was taller. He looked up slightly, into her eyes.
"I never asked you to be my Mrs. Landingham, Donna. I'm not asking it now." His voice was breaking, and to keep it from being shrill, he lowered his voice in volume and pitch till he was almost crooning the words to her softly.
"Then what am I? Who am I supposed to be to you, Josh?" Her eyes were very big, and her voice soft. Her breath was sweet, and at this distance he could see a fine spray of freckles across her nose, as yet unfaded from the sun in Gaza. "Who am I?" she repeated in a whisper.
"I was hoping you'd be…" He swallowed and said a little more forcefully, but still quietly, supplicating, "I was sort of hoping you might be my Abigail Bartlet, Donnatella."
She looked at him, her eyes flicking from his left eye to his right as though comparing what she saw mirrored there. "You want… but Joshua, we've never… I mean- we'd fight all the time."
"I imagine so."
"You'd forget, and treat me like your assistant again, and I'd forget to fight it because of how much I…" She swallowed suddenly. He knew what she'd almost said, and it hung between them for a moment like a patch of fog.
"And then, when you realize what I've done, you'll get mad and make my life hell." He continued with his most persuasive voice. "You'll rage and you'll push me, and you'll make a better man, the man I ought to be instead of the one I'm afraid I am." He reached forward, and planted a very brief kiss on her lips. She was too surprised to move, and he quickly pulled back.
"And then you'll forgive me, because you love me." He grinned smugly.
"Not if you plan on kissing me like that," she said bitterly, putting her hands on her hips. "Good Lord, Joshua, you think all our friends and adoring fans have been waiting 7 years for that?"
"Sorry, I forgot this was for history. Pucker up, woman." He grinned at her again, full on dimples and eyes twinkling.
"As if I would just," she began, and was suddenly cut off by his lips on hers.
W.W.
About fifteen minutes later, perhaps more like twenty, the door to the Deputy Chief of Staff's office opened. The Deputy, Deputy Chief of Staff slid out and closed the door behind her, then tried to discretely adjust her jacket and blouse as she returned to her desk.
She did make it to her desk, and got to work at once. She knew her planning skills would be put to the test, trying to get everything arranged before the election. She opened a file on her drive with a password- one that had been consulted without any real changes many times over the years.
"Future Plans- meet a man who can love me and I can love back. Fall in love. Spend years together. Get married. Be happy. Have children. Do something important with my life. Travel. Find out who I really am."
"Well, this is hopelessly out of date now, isn't it?" If she realized she was talking out loud, she didn't mention it to herself.
The End-