Tennis Balls and Magic Numbers
Author: mariel24j2002 Rating: PG Disclaimer: Josh and Donna are Aaron's (but soon to be some other guy's ); Schoolhouse Rock and the song belong to ABC Television, and probably a whole bunch of other people! Category: J/D, A/U romance--the epitome of fluffiness, so keep the insulin handy ;) Spoilers: small ones through Season 2 Feedback: Please please please-- I need it more than a back massage from Josh... wait, let me rethink that....
This is set in the same universe as my other story, "Right Here", but you don't really need to read that to get this. In a nutshell, Josh and Donna have been married about three years, and Donna has finally gotten pregnant after two years of trying. Canon? We don't need no stinkin' canon! Enjoy! ~
Donna pulled into the driveway, killing the engine of the SUV and popping the lever that opened the rear hatch. She sighed as she hauled herself out of the "monster truck," as they had jokingly come to refer to it, and went around to the back to unload her booty for the day. The big box would have to wait for Josh, though. In her current condition carrying something that cumbersome would be a mistake of monumental proportions. Not unlike herself, she thought wryly. As she walked--well, waddled-- up the driveway, she lamented her swollen ankles and aching back. She assumed her ankles were swollen, anyway, since she certainly couldn't see them from this vantage point. Unlocking the door after a struggle with the key in the sticky lock, she dropped her packages with a sigh in the living room. Buy Buy Baby had had a big sale, and she had done well if she did say so herself, with great deals on bulk size boxes of diapers and some adorable layette items, along with the Consumer Reports' highest-rated car seat that had finally gone on sale and awaited Josh in the trunk of the monster truck.
Right now though, she felt like she couldn't face another baby store if she was paid $1 million to do it. Flopping down on the couch, she kicked off her sneakers and put her feet up on the coffee table. Yup, swollen ankles. The baby wasn't due for another month, just enough time for her body to betray her in a few more fun ways. She'd read in "What to Expect When You're Expecting" about the leaky boobs and the hemmorhoids, and she was not looking forward to experiencing them firsthand. After a few more minutes of internal grousing, she decided to do something about the grumbling in her tummy that was from hunger this time, instead of the baby. Getting up from the couch was a monumental struggle, and when she looked into the freezer of the side-by-side refrigerator in the kitchen, she almost wept in frustration when she spied the orange Stouffer's box of Chicken with Broccoli that she'd been craving all day and was currently all the way at the bottom. In the back. She'd have to crouch down like a catcher to retrieve it, and she had serious doubts about her ability to get back up from that position. It was time to find Josh.
He wasn't downstairs, as she had feverently hoped, so she took a deep breath and began climbing the stairs to the second floor, which they had just completed renovating about a month before. There had been only two small bedrooms up here previously, and when all the work was done and the construction workers had cleared out there was left a beautiful master suite where the two small rooms had been, along with another bathroom and two other bright sunny bedrooms created when they extended the dormers at the front and back of the house. The nursery was to be the one right across the hall from theirs, and they had just finished painting it the weekend before--actually Josh had painted it, while Donna had perched on a ladder in the center of the room and kept him amused with trivial facts regarding paint, superstitions about ladders and how many different shades of yellow paper they had at Kinko's (she liked canary yellow the best, and had tried to closely match it in the paint). He was forever looking for spots he'd missed where the beige drywall showed through. From the adorably off-key warbling she heard coming from that direction, she'd be willing to bet that's what he was doing now.
Huffing and puffing a little, Donna stopped at the landing to catch her breath. She listened for a minute to the tune Josh was currently decimating--it sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it, like something she knew by heart but hadn't heard in years. As she padded down the hall she heard the song peter out, and then a monent later Josh absently started singing it again.
"Three is a magic number... Yes it is... it's a magic number..."
Her born-and-bred-on-television husband was crooning one of her childhood favorites from Schoolhouse Rock.
"Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity You get three as a magic number. The past and the present and the future Faith and hope and charity The heart and the brain and the body Gives you three as a magic number."
She watched him with amusement from the doorway. He was standing in the middle of the room, paintbrush in hand, scanning the walls for mistakes. He had on his "painting clothes," which consisted of a Harvard sweatshirt with most of the colors of the rainbow splattered across it, old jeans that were ripped in some interesting places that she'd happily investigate further if only she wasn't so damn tired, and a reversed Mets cap whose emblem was almost obliterated by canary yellow. She could also see some paint on the curls at the base of his neck; she'd let him find that on his own, or Toby or CJ could always point it out to him, she smirked to herself. He was turning around slowly, almost at glacial speed, dabbing at the walls here and there where he spied drywall, still singing (or rather humming now, as some of the lyrics had apparantly escaped him). She really wanted to hear the rest of the song as well as see the little dance move that she just knew was coming, so she ducked out of the doorway before he could see her. She peeked back around the doorframe when she heard him stop humming and begin to belt out the words.
"A man and a woman had a little baby YES THEY DID" (this line shouted in his "Donna!!" voice) "They had threeeee in the family And that's a magic number"
She loved so many things about her husband; sadly his dancing ability was not one of them. What she was witnessing could not even charitably called dancing. It was more like he was stumbling, but catching himself before falling right over. Sort of like a Weebil. You know, those old toys that wobble but they don't fall down? That was her man. Weebil Josh. She lamented the fact that the camera was all the way downstairs. Leo would love to see this. He'd probably have the picture blown up to poster size and displayed prominently in the bullpen.
Josh finished his impromptu boogie session by rotating back to where he started, in the middle of the room with his back to the door, and laid down the paintbrush on top of the paintcan at his feet. Satisfied with a job well done (for now anyway, until he started looking again tomorrow), he sang the ending to the song with a flourish, complete with arms rocking an imaginary infant and then holding three fingers high and wiggling his hips like Elvis. When Donna started to applaud he whirled around, a goofy grin on his face and blushing bright red. Which contrasted nicely with the spot of yellow on the tip of his nose. She threw her arms around him, mindless of the paint, kissed him soundly, and then buried her face in his neck. In her mind's eye she could see clearly a vision of Josh dancing around this room, their baby safe in his arms. She would handle anything this pregnancy threw at her in order to make that vision a reality.
"I love you," she whispered into his ear before pulling back a bit and reaching into her pocket for a tissue to clean off the spot on his nose. "You're gonna make a great dad, you know that?"
"You really think so?" he asked, and the look of uncertainty on his face surprised her.
"I know so. You can handle crying senators and whiny Congressmen with one hand tied behind your back. A baby will be a cinch in comparison. Plus your knowledge of Schoolhouse Rock will come in handy. He'll be the only one in his nursery school class with a full working knowledge of the multiplication table."
"SHE will be brilliant, no doubt, and that will be due almost primarily to her mother's loving influence, I'm sure. And I love you more."
"Impossible," she retorted with a smile. "Tell me again why you're so sure this baby is a girl?"
"Karmic justice. A mini-Donna will make for a much easier transition into parenthood than a mini-Josh would."
"Don't be so sure of that, buster. My mother would be glad to regale you with dozens of stories from my childhood that would give you cause to rethink that position."
"You were a little hell-raiser, huh? Not the first thing I think of when I look at you." They were swaying a bit on their feet as they held each other, and his hands were in gently-clenched fists, massaging her lower back in the "tennis-ball" method they had learned about at last week's Lamaze class. She leaned against him gratefully and sighed as the tensions of the day began to disappear along with the knots in her spine. The tennis balls were downstairs, but his hands were a more than adequate substitute.
"Then what is the first thing you think of when you look at me?" Yeah, she knew she was fishing, but hell, it had been a crappy day and she needed a little ego boost. She was expecting a cutesy comeback, but Josh, it seemed, was more interested in bringing the loving than the funny.
" I think," he whispered into her hair, "every single time I look at you, I think... here is my family. My home. My best friend. My love. My life."
"That's five things," she sniffled, and he chuckled as he used his thumb to wipe away the tears from her cheek, not needing to see them to know they were there.
"My bad. Mommy."
"You're forgiven. Daddy." They had started doing this months ago, calling each other "mommy" and "daddy" in an effort to acclimate themselves to the idea. As it was they were sure this child would be calling them "Josh" and "Donnatewwa" from the get-go, but they were giving it a shot.
Pulling back, she gave him a watery smile and then pivoted, leaning back against his chest and sighing in pleasure and relief as his arms came around her and he supported most of her weight against him. His hands began a soothing exploration of her tummy beneath her maternity t shirt (which was emblazoned with the slogan "it started with a kiss"), gently massaging the taut skin, pausing at times to further investigate a hard bump that could be a foot or a knee or an elbow. He gave a gentle little nudge against the biggest bump he found, and was rewarded with an answering kick against his hand.
"Oof," Donna gasped, but she was smiling delightedly.
"Hi in there!" Josh fairly crowed, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing her tummy like she was his own personal Bhudda. He lifted her back to a standing position and crouched down in front of her, kissing and whispering into her belly. She didn't catch much beyond "it's your daddy out here"; this was strictly a conversation between Josh, her navel and the lttle occupant within. Her hand rested on his head, fingers burrowing into the curls, trying to convey the fullness of her heart to him through her fingertips. After a few moments he straightend, took her face in his hands and kissed her long and slow and deep.
"Love you," he muttered into her hair when he finally lifted his head to breathe, at the same moment she whispered the same into his chest. They pulled back at the same time, in sync as always, and were smiling goofily into each other's eyes when Josh coked an eyebrow at the growl emenating from Donna's midsection. Pivoting on his heel in a manner that called to mind the evening of Bartlet's second Inauguration, Josh cocked an elbow for her to slip her arm into and led his wife downstairs to the kitchen, to retrieve and prepare her long -awaited snack.
Not such a bad way to end a long day, Donna thought to herself as she watched Josh putter around the kitchen, popping her meal in the microwave and absently reaching down to lift her feet onto a nearby cushioned chair as he passed by where she sat at the table. She could live with all the aches and pains, the niggling fears and doubts. Josh was her wingman, and he had her back. And a good supply of tennis balls.
THE END
Author's Notes: Ok, if you're under age 30 or live outside of the States, you may not be familiar with Schoolhouse Rock, which was a group of educational (math, US history, etc.) videos that played between cartoons on Saturday and Sunday morning television back in the seventies here in the good ole' US of A.
The tunes were unbelievably catchy, to the point where an entire generation of American citizens can sing (not recite, SING--just try to get one of us to do it without singing it-- it can't be done) the Preamble to the US Constitution. "Three is a Magic Number" was always one of my favorites, and when my four year old got a Schoolhouse Rock video for his birthday, the song got stuck in my head all over again. Not to mention that the couple in the video look exactly like cartoon versions of our favorite twosome...I need to get out more...:-)
Author: mariel24j2002 Rating: PG Disclaimer: Josh and Donna are Aaron's (but soon to be some other guy's ); Schoolhouse Rock and the song belong to ABC Television, and probably a whole bunch of other people! Category: J/D, A/U romance--the epitome of fluffiness, so keep the insulin handy ;) Spoilers: small ones through Season 2 Feedback: Please please please-- I need it more than a back massage from Josh... wait, let me rethink that....
This is set in the same universe as my other story, "Right Here", but you don't really need to read that to get this. In a nutshell, Josh and Donna have been married about three years, and Donna has finally gotten pregnant after two years of trying. Canon? We don't need no stinkin' canon! Enjoy! ~
Donna pulled into the driveway, killing the engine of the SUV and popping the lever that opened the rear hatch. She sighed as she hauled herself out of the "monster truck," as they had jokingly come to refer to it, and went around to the back to unload her booty for the day. The big box would have to wait for Josh, though. In her current condition carrying something that cumbersome would be a mistake of monumental proportions. Not unlike herself, she thought wryly. As she walked--well, waddled-- up the driveway, she lamented her swollen ankles and aching back. She assumed her ankles were swollen, anyway, since she certainly couldn't see them from this vantage point. Unlocking the door after a struggle with the key in the sticky lock, she dropped her packages with a sigh in the living room. Buy Buy Baby had had a big sale, and she had done well if she did say so herself, with great deals on bulk size boxes of diapers and some adorable layette items, along with the Consumer Reports' highest-rated car seat that had finally gone on sale and awaited Josh in the trunk of the monster truck.
Right now though, she felt like she couldn't face another baby store if she was paid $1 million to do it. Flopping down on the couch, she kicked off her sneakers and put her feet up on the coffee table. Yup, swollen ankles. The baby wasn't due for another month, just enough time for her body to betray her in a few more fun ways. She'd read in "What to Expect When You're Expecting" about the leaky boobs and the hemmorhoids, and she was not looking forward to experiencing them firsthand. After a few more minutes of internal grousing, she decided to do something about the grumbling in her tummy that was from hunger this time, instead of the baby. Getting up from the couch was a monumental struggle, and when she looked into the freezer of the side-by-side refrigerator in the kitchen, she almost wept in frustration when she spied the orange Stouffer's box of Chicken with Broccoli that she'd been craving all day and was currently all the way at the bottom. In the back. She'd have to crouch down like a catcher to retrieve it, and she had serious doubts about her ability to get back up from that position. It was time to find Josh.
He wasn't downstairs, as she had feverently hoped, so she took a deep breath and began climbing the stairs to the second floor, which they had just completed renovating about a month before. There had been only two small bedrooms up here previously, and when all the work was done and the construction workers had cleared out there was left a beautiful master suite where the two small rooms had been, along with another bathroom and two other bright sunny bedrooms created when they extended the dormers at the front and back of the house. The nursery was to be the one right across the hall from theirs, and they had just finished painting it the weekend before--actually Josh had painted it, while Donna had perched on a ladder in the center of the room and kept him amused with trivial facts regarding paint, superstitions about ladders and how many different shades of yellow paper they had at Kinko's (she liked canary yellow the best, and had tried to closely match it in the paint). He was forever looking for spots he'd missed where the beige drywall showed through. From the adorably off-key warbling she heard coming from that direction, she'd be willing to bet that's what he was doing now.
Huffing and puffing a little, Donna stopped at the landing to catch her breath. She listened for a minute to the tune Josh was currently decimating--it sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it, like something she knew by heart but hadn't heard in years. As she padded down the hall she heard the song peter out, and then a monent later Josh absently started singing it again.
"Three is a magic number... Yes it is... it's a magic number..."
Her born-and-bred-on-television husband was crooning one of her childhood favorites from Schoolhouse Rock.
"Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity You get three as a magic number. The past and the present and the future Faith and hope and charity The heart and the brain and the body Gives you three as a magic number."
She watched him with amusement from the doorway. He was standing in the middle of the room, paintbrush in hand, scanning the walls for mistakes. He had on his "painting clothes," which consisted of a Harvard sweatshirt with most of the colors of the rainbow splattered across it, old jeans that were ripped in some interesting places that she'd happily investigate further if only she wasn't so damn tired, and a reversed Mets cap whose emblem was almost obliterated by canary yellow. She could also see some paint on the curls at the base of his neck; she'd let him find that on his own, or Toby or CJ could always point it out to him, she smirked to herself. He was turning around slowly, almost at glacial speed, dabbing at the walls here and there where he spied drywall, still singing (or rather humming now, as some of the lyrics had apparantly escaped him). She really wanted to hear the rest of the song as well as see the little dance move that she just knew was coming, so she ducked out of the doorway before he could see her. She peeked back around the doorframe when she heard him stop humming and begin to belt out the words.
"A man and a woman had a little baby YES THEY DID" (this line shouted in his "Donna!!" voice) "They had threeeee in the family And that's a magic number"
She loved so many things about her husband; sadly his dancing ability was not one of them. What she was witnessing could not even charitably called dancing. It was more like he was stumbling, but catching himself before falling right over. Sort of like a Weebil. You know, those old toys that wobble but they don't fall down? That was her man. Weebil Josh. She lamented the fact that the camera was all the way downstairs. Leo would love to see this. He'd probably have the picture blown up to poster size and displayed prominently in the bullpen.
Josh finished his impromptu boogie session by rotating back to where he started, in the middle of the room with his back to the door, and laid down the paintbrush on top of the paintcan at his feet. Satisfied with a job well done (for now anyway, until he started looking again tomorrow), he sang the ending to the song with a flourish, complete with arms rocking an imaginary infant and then holding three fingers high and wiggling his hips like Elvis. When Donna started to applaud he whirled around, a goofy grin on his face and blushing bright red. Which contrasted nicely with the spot of yellow on the tip of his nose. She threw her arms around him, mindless of the paint, kissed him soundly, and then buried her face in his neck. In her mind's eye she could see clearly a vision of Josh dancing around this room, their baby safe in his arms. She would handle anything this pregnancy threw at her in order to make that vision a reality.
"I love you," she whispered into his ear before pulling back a bit and reaching into her pocket for a tissue to clean off the spot on his nose. "You're gonna make a great dad, you know that?"
"You really think so?" he asked, and the look of uncertainty on his face surprised her.
"I know so. You can handle crying senators and whiny Congressmen with one hand tied behind your back. A baby will be a cinch in comparison. Plus your knowledge of Schoolhouse Rock will come in handy. He'll be the only one in his nursery school class with a full working knowledge of the multiplication table."
"SHE will be brilliant, no doubt, and that will be due almost primarily to her mother's loving influence, I'm sure. And I love you more."
"Impossible," she retorted with a smile. "Tell me again why you're so sure this baby is a girl?"
"Karmic justice. A mini-Donna will make for a much easier transition into parenthood than a mini-Josh would."
"Don't be so sure of that, buster. My mother would be glad to regale you with dozens of stories from my childhood that would give you cause to rethink that position."
"You were a little hell-raiser, huh? Not the first thing I think of when I look at you." They were swaying a bit on their feet as they held each other, and his hands were in gently-clenched fists, massaging her lower back in the "tennis-ball" method they had learned about at last week's Lamaze class. She leaned against him gratefully and sighed as the tensions of the day began to disappear along with the knots in her spine. The tennis balls were downstairs, but his hands were a more than adequate substitute.
"Then what is the first thing you think of when you look at me?" Yeah, she knew she was fishing, but hell, it had been a crappy day and she needed a little ego boost. She was expecting a cutesy comeback, but Josh, it seemed, was more interested in bringing the loving than the funny.
" I think," he whispered into her hair, "every single time I look at you, I think... here is my family. My home. My best friend. My love. My life."
"That's five things," she sniffled, and he chuckled as he used his thumb to wipe away the tears from her cheek, not needing to see them to know they were there.
"My bad. Mommy."
"You're forgiven. Daddy." They had started doing this months ago, calling each other "mommy" and "daddy" in an effort to acclimate themselves to the idea. As it was they were sure this child would be calling them "Josh" and "Donnatewwa" from the get-go, but they were giving it a shot.
Pulling back, she gave him a watery smile and then pivoted, leaning back against his chest and sighing in pleasure and relief as his arms came around her and he supported most of her weight against him. His hands began a soothing exploration of her tummy beneath her maternity t shirt (which was emblazoned with the slogan "it started with a kiss"), gently massaging the taut skin, pausing at times to further investigate a hard bump that could be a foot or a knee or an elbow. He gave a gentle little nudge against the biggest bump he found, and was rewarded with an answering kick against his hand.
"Oof," Donna gasped, but she was smiling delightedly.
"Hi in there!" Josh fairly crowed, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing her tummy like she was his own personal Bhudda. He lifted her back to a standing position and crouched down in front of her, kissing and whispering into her belly. She didn't catch much beyond "it's your daddy out here"; this was strictly a conversation between Josh, her navel and the lttle occupant within. Her hand rested on his head, fingers burrowing into the curls, trying to convey the fullness of her heart to him through her fingertips. After a few moments he straightend, took her face in his hands and kissed her long and slow and deep.
"Love you," he muttered into her hair when he finally lifted his head to breathe, at the same moment she whispered the same into his chest. They pulled back at the same time, in sync as always, and were smiling goofily into each other's eyes when Josh coked an eyebrow at the growl emenating from Donna's midsection. Pivoting on his heel in a manner that called to mind the evening of Bartlet's second Inauguration, Josh cocked an elbow for her to slip her arm into and led his wife downstairs to the kitchen, to retrieve and prepare her long -awaited snack.
Not such a bad way to end a long day, Donna thought to herself as she watched Josh putter around the kitchen, popping her meal in the microwave and absently reaching down to lift her feet onto a nearby cushioned chair as he passed by where she sat at the table. She could live with all the aches and pains, the niggling fears and doubts. Josh was her wingman, and he had her back. And a good supply of tennis balls.
THE END
Author's Notes: Ok, if you're under age 30 or live outside of the States, you may not be familiar with Schoolhouse Rock, which was a group of educational (math, US history, etc.) videos that played between cartoons on Saturday and Sunday morning television back in the seventies here in the good ole' US of A.
The tunes were unbelievably catchy, to the point where an entire generation of American citizens can sing (not recite, SING--just try to get one of us to do it without singing it-- it can't be done) the Preamble to the US Constitution. "Three is a Magic Number" was always one of my favorites, and when my four year old got a Schoolhouse Rock video for his birthday, the song got stuck in my head all over again. Not to mention that the couple in the video look exactly like cartoon versions of our favorite twosome...I need to get out more...:-)