Author's Note: Ten hours in the car today, but at least I had my laptop with me! And once again I'm pushing perilously close to midnight, but still making it in under the deadline. This fic is from a prompt by Anoynmous, who asked for "Josh has a PTSD episode and Donna helps him through it." Hope you enjoy!
…...
Things had been getting better since Christmastime. That wasn't necessarily a high bar to clear, but it had still been reassuring to Donna. It had been painful and scary to go over Josh's head to Leo and beg for help on behalf of the best friend she barely recognized anymore. It had been equally painful and almost as scary to spend two hours with Dr. Stanley Keyworth, letting him probe her memories and perceptions, trying to explain how Josh always yelled, always teased, but that it was different now because he didn't care if he was hurting her. She'd thought the doctor seemed to interested in her personal relationship with Josh, no matter how she'd insisted that they were close friends and nothing more. It was true for Josh, and that was the important thing in her opinion, and the last thing she was going to do was risk earning herself a transfer that would take her away from him.
But in the end, the doctor had helped. Josh had let Donna take him to the emergency room and get his hand treated, then take him home and put him to bed the way she had when he'd been freshly home from the hospital. As she'd fussed with his blankets and double-checked his new bandage, he'd admitted the diagnosis he'd been given. She hadn't been surprised, even as the four letters cut deep. Not letting herself reveal most of her emotions, she'd nodded and told him they would deal with it. While he'd slept, she'd gone to his computer and started researching. By the time she'd fallen asleep on his couch just before dawn, she'd had a plan.
The plan had started Christmas morning, as soon as Josh woke up. She'd made sure he got a healthy breakfast, then put him on the treadmill. Exercise, she informed him, was helpful, especially exercise with repetitive motion that involved both arms and legs. Until the weather got warm enough for him to jog again, the treadmill would have to do. His whine of protest, so normal, so Josh, had filled her with relief. From that point on, the Rules were back in effect, in slightly modified form, and mostly without him being aware of it. Structure was important, the internet had advised her, plans for the future were important. Making sure Josh ate, made it to meetings, and got sleep had been part of her job for years already, so that was easy enough. Planning for the future was harder. Joey Lucas' return seemed like the perfect opportunity there. She was exactly the sort of woman Josh liked to pursue, educated, argumentative, attractive and brunette. Sure, she lived in California most of the time, but DC was a pollster's natural habitat. Donna couldn't understand how, despite her best efforts, Josh and Joey remained stubbornly unattached. But he was still getting better.
Then came the MS. Donna's first thought was for the President, but her second thought was immediately for Josh. This was not the sort of tension he needed, but it wasn't something any of them would be able to fix. Schedule gave way to the maelstrom of strategizing and spin, and planning for the future was suddenly uncertain and scary. Donna began to wonder if any of them would have a career after this was over. She watched helplessly as Josh locked himself into crisis mode, foregoing exercise and sleep in favor of extra helpings of stress that he couldn't tell anybody about. It wasn't as bad as last time, she told herself, because this time she could do more to help. That was true, but in some ways it was more frightening, being able to see the early manifestations of symptoms she'd ignored before. It was worse knowing what might be coming.
When the President chose to fight for his reelection, it was a mixed blessing. Plans for the future were important, Donna reminded herself, but this one promised an immediate future full of turmoil. There'd be no orderly retreat from the world stage, no transition back to quieter and more private lives. All of them were still on the firing line, and it hit the senior staff hardest. The assistants were still mourning the loss of their de facto leader and surrogate mother, but there was work to do. Donna found herself not only trying to keep Josh afloat, but to back up Carol after CJ's implosion in the briefing room sent the entire press office into days of chaos. Whenever she had a few extra seconds to spare after that, she was in Margaret's office, helping manage the disarray resulting from Margaret taking on half of Mrs. Landingham's duties as well as her own until the President could hire someone new. Bonnie and Ginger helped out as well, but Communications was chronically understaffed and Toby and Sam were very needy. Some nights Donna was so wired after an eighteen hour day that even when she got home, she could only lay in bed and think of everything that still wasn't finished.
Donna didn't know what Bruno said to Josh about tobacco, but Josh came out of the meeting that day looking not only stressed, but flattened as well. She tried to pull him aside to talk about it, but he shook her off, citing busyness that was all-too-authentic. He yelled at her twice for reports she couldn't possibly have finished already, which was annoying, but when he yelled at Bonnie for not getting a message to Sam that she knew nothing about, that was unnerving. She wondered if she should call Stanley, but there was nothing specific she could point to. What would she even say? What would Josh say if he knew she'd called? It might just make things worse.
Supper that night wound up being another bunch of pizzas in the Sagittarius room, consumed with coffee, cola and plenty of antacid as Bruno dragged them through another round of listless polling numbers. Margaret and Donna set up shop in the open space at the top of the stairs, out of the way but close enough to listen and take notes on what was going on. Bruno and Doug were droning on about messaging and apologies, Sam and Toby were arguing, and Josh was twitching. Donna watched in fascinated dread as he shredded his otherwise untouched pizza, jostling his leg up and down in a way that had CJ shooting him looks that were annoyed and increasingly concerned. She was still in disgrace as well; neither she nor Josh were saying much that night. Leo seemed content to preside over the argument for the moment, letting it play out.
"If we don't see movement in the polls in the next two weeks, we might as well pack it up and go home now!" Doug insisted, pushing the sheaf of polls across the table once again. "We need an apology, and it needs to be overt, and it needs to be now. The American people won't give their trust to somebody who's lied to them and isn't going to be accountable for that!"
"He didn't lie!" Toby jerked out of his seat and slapped the table with both hands. Everyone startled, but Josh jerked backwards hard enough that he almost overbalanced the chair. He caught himself at the last moment, recovering as Toby ranted at Doug about precision of language and how it was something that speechwriters might want to consider being actually good at, but from across the room, Donna could see him sweating.
She leaned in toward Margaret, who was watching the scene play out with concern as well. Margaret alone among the other assistants knew of Josh's diagnosis, and despite her penchant for gossip, Donna knew she'd take that one to her grave. Margaret understood absolute loyalty to the man you worked for. "He's going to lose it," Donna whispered urgently in Margaret's ear. "I need to get him out of here."
Margaret nodded, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. She held it down by her side and dialed surreptitiously, and a moment later Josh's cellphone rang in Donna's bag. "Fake talk for thirty seconds, then pull him," Margaret murmured, then rose from her seat and headed down the stairs to Leo's seat. The redhead whispered in his ear, but Leo's expression never changed. He nodded fractionally.
Donna rose from her seat. "Josh?" she asked, trying to sound normal. "It's the Senator, about the thing." She couldn't think of anything more specific right now, but hoped it would sound like she was trying to be vague in front of the visitors."
"What?" Josh asked. His eyes were just a little glassy as he looked up at her.
"Go ahead, Josh," Leo said casually. "Take care of whatever you need to. I think we're almost done here."
Josh obediently rose from his seat and made his way around the still-arguing speechwriters. CJ met Donna's eyes questioningly from across the room, but Donna kept her expression noncommittal. Even if she could communicate wordlessly across the room, she had no idea what she'd say. As soon as Josh reached the top of the stairs she hustled him out of the room, one hand on his back in a reverse of their usual routine.
"What the hell, Donna?" he demanded as soon as the door was shut. "It's not Kalmbach again, is it? If that son of a bitch thinks he's going to blackmail us over tobacco for another fraction of a second-" His voice was much too loud even for a basement hallway at the White House, his movements jerky with unfocused anger.
"Shh, no, it's not Kalmbach!" Donna opened the door to the couch room and all but shoved him inside, locking the door behind them. "Nobody's calling you, Josh, I was just trying to get you out of the room. Are you okay?"
"You made it up?" he demanded loudly, angrily. She knew the walls in this room were thick, and for that she was grateful. "We're not just playing at running the government here, Donna, you can't just come up with convenient little lies because you want some attention!"
That stung, but she didn't let it show. "You're jumpy," she pointed out, "and you're sweating. You've been angry all day, and when Toby smacked the table in there, you almost fell off your chair. Please," she implored, "talk to me. Or let me call Stanley for you."
"I don't need Stanley!" he shouted, stalking across the room away from her. "I'm not fucking crazy, Donna! I had a problem and I dealt with that problem, and now we have other, bigger, huge, massive problems to be thinking about! The administration is falling down around our ears and the President is one bad cold away from collapsing on camera and being forced to resign, but by all means, let's take some time to ring the bell about my PTSD in case I might have forgotten about it for a single goddamned second!"
"Josh, listen to yourself!" She followed him across the room but didn't touch him, afraid of making things worse. "Is this how you talk in the White House, about the President? You don't know what you're saying, you're going to go out there and do something you regret. Please, just sit down for a few minutes and rest, and we can talk about this."
"We are not talking about this!" he insisted. "You're not my mother, and you're not my therapist, and you're not my girlfriend. You're my assistant," he told her harshly, "and you're paid to let me do my job, not ride herd on me like some kind of watchdog. If I can't do my job anymore, let Leo or the President tell me that and I'll quit!"
Those words did more than sting, and it was a moment before Donna could find her voice again. Even then it was less assertive than before, more entreating. "You don't mean that," she told him. "You're angry because you don't feel safe anywhere, and you're on edge all the time, and you're not sleeping. It's the PTSD, and we can handle it before it gets really bad again-"
"I can't have PTSD right now!" Josh spun away from her, and before she realized what he was doing, he'd made a fist and was drawing his arm back, aiming at the concrete cinderblock wall. Maybe it was less dangerous than aiming at a window, but he'd surely break a couple of knuckles if he punched it hard enough. Without thinking, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm, throwing off his balance and sending them both tumbling to the floor.
Donna managed to absorb the impact with her shoulder and save her head, but having Josh crash down on top of her was enough to knock the wind out of her for a minute. Her body cushioned the impact for him, and he was off her in an instant, horror on his face as he crabwalked backwards into the corner. She was certain that most of the horror had nothing to do with the minor tumble they'd taken. "Josh?" she asked carefully, pushing herself to sit up but not getting any closer. "Can you hear me?"
He nodded, then shook his head. "It's so loud."
She crawled forward, slow and careful. "There's no noise in here, Josh," she told him. "It's very quiet in here. It's very safe, just you and me. We're in the couch room. Do you see the couches?"
"Yeah..." His voice was still uncertain. "My chest hurts."
"You're breathing too fast," she told him. "It's making your lungs ache. Your chest is healed now, it's all better. There's nothing to hurt you in here. Can I touch you?" When he nodded fractionally, she reached out and put her hand over his chest, her fingers splayed. "All healed up," she told him again. "Can you feel my hand?"
Josh raised his hand and covered hers, cold and clammy over warm. "Yeah," he said again, a little stronger. Wrapping his fingers around hers, he raised her hand to his face, pressing it to his damp cheek. He closed his eyes.
"That's good," she murmured, cupping his cheek gently. He needed to shave, though not as badly as he needed to sleep. "Now take some slow, deep breaths. Breathe out slowly, from your stomach. There you go." She talked him through a few more breaths until his color was normal again, until her own insides weren't quaking quite so hard. "How are you feeling?"
"Pretty crazy right now, honestly," he muttered. He opened his eyes and looked at her, brown eyes full of confusion and remorse. "Did I...?"
Donna shook her head. "It's fine," she told him. "We're fine. Nobody else saw anything, and Margaret just told Leo that you needed a break. But you can't go on like this," she insisted. "You need to rest, and you need to talk to Stanley. Please." She was not above begging in this particular situation.
He nodded slowly. "I'll call him tomorrow morning," he promised. "After I get some sleep." She let out a long breath of her own, finally letting herself relax. He met her eyes again, taking the hand he was still holding and pressing his lips lightly against the backs of her fingers. "I'm sorry," he told her.
She mustered a smile for him, then helped him to his feet. "If you get sleep, then I get sleep. I could really use some sleep." Unable to resist, she stepped into him and hugged him, grateful for the strength of his arms and the warmth of his body.
"I'll keep that in mind," He returned the hug, pressing his face into her shoulder so that she could feel his breath through the cloth of her shirt. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she assured him, holding on tight. "Much better now." They walked out of the room together, his fingertips light against the small of her back. It was a small touch, the smallest, but it made her feel more connected to him than she had since Christmas.