Author's Note: This is another Tumblr prompt for Anonymous, who asked for "It's Josh instead of Donna who gets stuck with CJ in her office the night of the lockdown." This was a good prompt since all I apparently want to write about right now is CJ. :D Still working slowly through my list of prompts, but I've only got three left! Hope you enjoy this one, feedback is always amazing and welcome!

…...

Josh popped into CJ's doorway moments after Donna walked out with the CODEL briefing book. "What's up with Donna?" he asked. "She blew out of here looking like somebody canceled Christmas, didn't even look at me in the hall." He sounded deeply aggrieved.

"Have you got the stuff?" CJ asked instead of answering his question.

"Yeah, I got it," he said with a frown. He held up a white styrofoam container that in happier times might contain leftover soup. "Twenty-four prime quality nightcrawlers, guaranteed alive as of this morning, fresh from my refrigerator which I will now need to have decontaminated."

"Thank you very much," She plucked the container from his hands and stowed it inside the tackle basket. "Do I even want to know where you managed to find live bait in DC?

"I have no idea," he admitted with a grin. "I sent an intern out for it."

"You're a bad person," she assured him.

"Leo's eventually going to stop giving me interns and all our lives will be a lot easier."

Before CJ could say anything to that, a black-suited Secret Service agent stuck his head in the door. "Mr. Lyman, Ms. Cregg, we are currently in a crash situation. Please remain in this room until the crash has been lifted.

"Come on, seriously?" Josh asked. "I've been here eighteen hours and you schedule a drill now?"

"It's not a drill, Mr. Lyman. Please remain where you are." The agent pulled away and shut the door. Josh and CJ looked at each other.

"Three more minutes and I would've been out of here," CJ sighed. "But at least I have plenty of live worms to show for it."

Josh reached for CJ's phone. "Can I?" he asked. "I wanna check on Donna, if she's still here." When CJ nodded and stepped aside, he dialed his own office. "Hey, yeah." he said into the phone. "I'm stuck in CJ's office. Oh, Commander Harper is there? Yeah, that's fine, just don't go letting him talk you into a date-" CJ rolled her eyes, but Josh wasn't paying attention. "She? Oh. Yeah, okay. See if you can sweet-talk her into telling me what the hell happened to my Panama joke. I'll find you when they let us out of here." He hung up the phone without signing off and slumped onto CJ's couch. "This sucks."

"You think it sucks?" CJ asked, kicking off her shoes and sitting down in her desk chair. "I'm supposed to be making a rendezvous right now to drive out to the Shenandoahs on a romantic weekend getaway, pitch a tent under the stars, wake up-" She broke off when Josh started giggling uncontrollably. "Oh for God's sake."

"You said-" Josh choked out, then ducked hastily as one of CJ's shoes came flying his way. "I mean, that really is unfortunate, CJ," he managed, with grin reduced to a mile-wide smirk. "However will you cope with being late for your moonlight tent-p-" He yelped as the second shoe actually made contact with his shin.

"If you'd kindly return from your brief excursion to the third grade, maybe I won't have to hurt you anymore," CJ requested calmly, wriggling a bit as she removed her hose beneath her dress. Years of experience had taught her how to do it without showing anything, but she was pretty certain that if Josh had noticed, he'd have had another barrage of juvenile comments to throw at her. Luckily, he was distracted by her shoes.

He picked one up, turned it over in his hand, mimed stabbing someone with the icepick heel. "I'm not sure these should be allowed in the White House," he decided. "They're really dangerous."

"To me more than anyone else," she agreed absently.

"What the hell do you need to be taller for, anyway? You and Donna, always with the heels. Makes me feel like I should be wearing lifts or something."

'To intimidate you, mi amour," CJ replied, yanking the hose all the way off and shoving it into her desk drawer for later. "Men have funny reactions to women who are taller than them. Invokes the old elementary school teacher instincts." When his mouth dropped open at that, she smirked. "Honestly, it's not about the height. They make my legs look fantastic."

"You do have fantastic legs," he agreed, for once without a hint of innuendo. "Must be all the falling off the treadmill paying off."

"I really don't know why I ever tell you anything," she muttered. There was really no way to change the rest of her outfit in mixed company, but at least it was a bit more comfortable now. She picked up a stack of memos Carol had left on her desk and began to sort through them for lack of anything better to do.

Josh picked up her trail bag and opened it without asking, beginning to pick through the survival and camping gear she'd brought along. They were quiet for a few minutes before he asked, "So Donna was mad when she left here earlier. Why was that?"

"She got the briefing book for the CODEL."

"Why would that piss her off?"Josh asked, mystified.

"I take it you didn't tell her she was bumping Jack Sosa from the CODEL." CJ set down her memos and turned her chair to face him.

"No, but why should it matter?" he asked, experimentally untwisting the end of her spool of guy line. "Jack Sosa's a little douchebag."

"Maybe, but he's my little douchebag, and he earned that trip," CJ countered, letting a little of her own irritation slip through the way she hadn't earlier with Donna. "What are you doing sending Donna to do an assistant press secretary's job?"

"Anybody can send press faxes and organize the dispatches," Josh replied with a deliberately casual shrug. CJ recognized him going into political combat mode and wondered at it. "Donna wants to expand her portfolio of responsibilities, this looked like a good opportunity."

"She wants to work in Communications now?" CJ asked skeptically. "Not that I wouldn't take her in a heartbeat, obviously, but this CODEL isn't in her wheelhouse. It's administrative busywork for press aides that's made slightly more sexy by the fact that you have to take a twelve-hour plane flight to get there. Jack speaks a little Hebrew and he's been doing the job for more than a year now, so he's the natural choice. Since when do I not get to assign the White House press liaisons?"

Josh was clearly uncomfortable now, and letting that discomfort turn into irritation. "You have input over the way the press liaisons are assigned, CJ, but final approval rests with the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, which oversees the 1100 people working in this building, including Jack Sosa and yourself. So if you get a personnel reassignment from me, I'm not entirely sure where you get off questioning that!"

CJ's fingers tightened around her chair as she leaned forward, ready to snap out a response, but she deliberately throttled herself back. Josh thrived on conflict, the louder the better. Ramping up the aggression was not a winning strategy here, especially with the two of them trapped in her office for the next indeterminate amount of time. She leaned back in her chair, relaxed her posture, crossed her legs. Studied him silently for a minute while he glared at her. "We've worked together for a long time now," she told him quietly. "You don't try and pull rank very often. When you do, it's either for an incredibly good reason or an incredibly stupid reason. I can live with Jack not going on the CODEL, but I would like you to tell me why."

He continued to glare at her a minute for the "incredibly stupid" bit, but she knew he was enough of a debater to know when he didn't have a leg to stand on. Finally he sighed, slumping back against the couch. "It's got nothing to do with Jack, or with your choosing the press liaisons," he admitted, which was not a shock to CJ. "Donna really wanted to go on the Brussels trip, the trade negotiation thing. She did a shitload of work for it, even beyond the shitload of work I already have her doing. It was stuff I normally would've given to Ed and Larry or some of the assistant deputies, but she took it on her own initiative, and she did good work. Really good work. When she asked to go on the trip I blew her off because, god, Belgium? Who the hell wants to go to Belgium?" He screwed up his face to indicate his own opinion of Belgium.

"I'm guessing Donna doesn't share your opinion of Belgium," CJ observed dryly.

"Yeah, but she's interested in all kinds of crazy stuff." His expression was more affectionate than exasperated, CJ noted with some interest. "Anyway I tried at the last minute to get her on the trip, but it was full up, and Toby was bitching about this whole CODEL thing. I talked with him about it, and we figured hey, send Donna on the trip and she gets out of the White House and doing something different for awhile, and Toby knows there's somebody sensible there to keep Andy out of trouble. It makes sense, CJ! Two birds, one stone. The press stuff won't be any problem, I'm sure she'll know it backwards and forwards before she goes."

CJ got up from her desk and came around to sit in one of the chairs near the couch, more sympathetic than annoyed now. "You can be a very sweet man, Joshua," she told him, "but sometimes you miss the point entirely."

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Donna didn't want to go to Brussels because she loves Belgium or wants a vacation from the White House," CJ told him, leaning forward and resting her clasped hands on one knee. "She took on that work because she grew out of being your assistant about three years ago and she's stifling in that job. She wants more responsibility, and she wants recognition for the work she does. She's sharper and more astute than any of your assistant deputies, and she works more hours than any of the other assistants, on the same salary. If you want to let her spread her wings, don't send her to Gaza, send her up to the Hill to do some actual legislative work!"

"I can't make her an assistant deputy, CJ!" he retorted, readily enough that he'd obviously at least considered it. "Every other AD has a college degree, most of them more than a BA, and political experience. What would it look like? She can't go anywhere because she hasn't got a degree!"

"And she can't get a degree because she works even more hours than Charlie, with no downtime," CJ noted. "You know and I know that I could pick up this phone right now and have a new job for her within two calls. A good job, one that would let her actually reach her potential the way she's never going to in your bullpen."

Josh was silent, not meeting her eyes anymore. CJ hoped he was listening as she went on. "Carol's a fantastic assistant, and she wants to be a press spokesperson one day. She's going to get there, but she's not there yet. She's also my friend, so I've been trying to give her opportunities to get better at it, letting her handle the gaggle or draft press releases or help me think out strategies. She's not nearly as close to being a press secretary as Donna is to being a deputy chief of staff. You know she ran your office for twelve weeks back in the first term and held it all together, even as green as she was. She's better now. How long do you think you can hold onto her, Josh?"

"I don't know," he admitted, still looking down, his voice hoarse. "I don't know why she's staying now."

"Are you serious?" CJ mastered the urge to laugh in disbelief. "You can't possibly tell me you haven't seen-"

"Don't say it!" he snapped, suddenly meeting her eyes again. He looked half-wild, his face ravaged. "You can't say it CJ, you're the first one who'd tell me that. I haven't said it in four years, you don't get to say anything about it now."

Well, that put an entirely new spin on the whole situation. CJ pursed her lips and regarded him with pity. She'd thought after the Terrible Travails of Amy Gardner than Josh's fascination with Donna was a thing of the past, even if hers with him was not. Apparently he'd just gotten better at hiding it. "You know, if she leaves your office..."

"I'll still have been her boss," he pointed out, "and I'll never even see her! We're both workaholics with no lives, and that's not a matter of me tying her to her chair to keep her here. If she leaves the White House, I'll lose her, CJ. I can't do it." He dropped his head into his hands. "And if she stays here and we just keep doing this...whatever, she's eventually going to start to hate me. I just... I need to buy some time to figure this out."

Rising from her seat, CJ swept her skirt to one side and sat down on the couch next to him, giving him a one-armed hug. "Toby told me the story of Inauguration Night," she told him. "We both thought something was going to happen between you then."

"I think she thought so too," Josh said with a humorless laugh. "But you know we can't. It would be a scandal, hurt the administration. We don't need the bad press, and god knows she doesn't need to hear the things they'll say about her."

"I would think that would be up to her to decide," CJ pointed out mildly. "As for the rest, well, you're not wrong to worry, but this is the second term. We're not standing for reelection, and you have a phenomenal press spokesperson in your corner, if I do say so myself. Midterms are around the corner, but once those are done..."

He raised his head from his hands and looked at her. "You'd back me on this?"

"Don't get me wrong," she told him, "Leo will still probably give you hell about it, and she might have to transfer somewhere else in the White House, depending on how convincingly you can sell your complete lostness without her. But as far as the press is concerned, it's something that can be handled. And of course I'm on your side." Her smile was bittersweet. "You think I, of all people, can't sympathize with what it's like to want somebody and not be able to have them because of your jobs?"

Josh dropped his eyes again. "Yeah..." They both sighed. "Do you think it'll make a difference?" he asked. "I mean, if she's really so stifled in her job..."

"The job only goes two more years," CJ pointed out. "And it's still the White House, working here isn't nothing. I suspect that if you relieve your mutual ongoing frustrations, the rest of it won't seem nearly so unmanageable. But the only way to know for sure is to talk to her about it," she told him pointedly.

"Yeah, talk to her..." Josh repeated, not sounding too enthused. "After the midterms, huh?"

"I can only spin so many things at once," she told him. "We need those seats."

"Right. I gotta think about this," he admitted. "I need to get some contingency plans worked out. After the CODEL I'll talk to her, and we'll both talk to you, and we'll figure something out."

"You really want to send her on a babysitting trip to Gaza still?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I can't pull her now without explaining why, and she's already on all the paperwork. It'll still be a good experience for her, and maybe Toby's blood pressure will drop a couple of points. And it'll be something she can tell our grandkids about." He seemed to be rolling that phrase around in his mouth, deciding how he felt about the taste.

She laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. "Don't jump the gun there, slugger. You've got a lot of work to do before you get to the grandparent bit."

"Oh ye of little faith," he retorted, some of his swagger beginning to seep back in. "Don't you know that I'm a master negotiator?" She rolled her eyes and he shoulder-checked her back. "I saw that. It's practically a done deal!" He picked up her trail bag again and began to paw through it. "Hey, have you got any granola bars in here? I'm starving."

CJ laughed and relaxed, leaning back against the couch. "Yeah, front pocket, take whatever you want. But you're gonna owe me."

"Big time," he agreed, pulling one out of the bag and sitting back next to her. "You know I'm good for it." Neither of them were talking about granola bars now.

"I know. Just don't screw up, okay?" She patted his knee and they both lapsed into silence, waiting for their chance to go home.