Little Ball of Fur

by etraytin

Donna attempts to find a home for her roommate's kittens. Josh attempts to hold onto his sanity in an office full of kittens.

Author's Note: You guys, I don't even understand how this prompt got away from me so quickly. It's ten pages long in my word processor, and I can't even publish it on Tumblr. It is incredibly fluffy, in both the figurative and literal sense.

Anonymous asked: "Donna's roommate's cat has had kittens. Which of the White House staffers (or first family) can be persuaded to adopt one?"

…...

When Donna walked into Josh's office at quarter till eight that morning, Josh seriously wondered for a minute if she was planning on moving in. Besides the purse and file bag she usually carried, she had two reusable shopping bags, a covered plastic baking pan, and a blue mesh-sided duffle bag. She looked exhausted, an expression he didn't usually manage to put on her face until at least noon. With an unceremonious sigh, she plopped the duffle bag down on his desk. He looked at it skeptically. "Donna, your bag is crying."

"They're fine," she said, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the bag as she began unpacking things from the grocery sack. Little plastic dishes, a long flat pan, a bag of something brown and crumbly.

"Donna," he said warningly, "what's in the bag?"

"The first thing I want you to remember," she told him firmly, "is that you owe me one."

"Owe you one?" he asked indignantly. "For what?"

"Honestly, you probably owe me twenty-five, but does 'Oh yes, Senator Hardesty, I'd love to hear more about lumber subsidies?' ring a bell?" she pressed. "While certain deputy chiefs of staff were busy down the hall filling CJ's office with glitter stars instead of taking their meetings?"

Josh cleared his throat. "All I remember was that important business of national consequence was attended to that day." She glared, and he rounded his shoulders in surrender. "Fine. I'm remembering. Now what the hell is in the bag and how is it going to ruin my life today?"

"It's not a bag," she told him primly. "It's a soft-sided carrier. It's got collapsible supports inside, like tent poles, and it folds flat, which is really useful-"

"Donna! Get on with it!" Something was scratching at the side of the bag now, which Josh found rather alarming.

"Fine! Myroommate'scathadkittensandineedtoleavethemheretoday," she spat out as fast as possible, even as she pulled open the zipper securing the front mesh. Immediately a fat gray kitten bulldozed its way out of the carrier and onto Josh's desk, followed shortly thereafter by a smaller gray kitten, a white kitten with black ears and tail, and an orange striped kitten.

"Okay. More explaining now," Josh requested, very calmly he thought, staring at his cat-covered desk.

"My roommate's cat had kittens," Donna said again, more slowly. "Or more like we got adopted by a stray who turned out to be pregnant, and now she's my roommate's cat. We've been raising the kittens and they're about ready for homes, but she's insisting we have to get them fixed first so as to ensure they won't be contributing to future cat overpopulation. They need to spend an entire day at the vet to get spayed and neutered, but we've got the thing with Radcliffe tomorrow morning and you're going to piss them off so I need to be there to send them a fruit basket and there's no way I can drop the kittens off and make it there on time. But the vet said that they can board overnight if I drop them off before six tonight and I can do that but only if I brought the kittens to work with me today." She said all of that without any audible breaths, which Josh found both impressive and slightly overwhelming.

"Donna, you can't bring kittens into the White House!"

"And yet," she pointed out with a glance at the quartet who were beginning to explore the further expanses of Josh's desk.

"And yet," he agreed with a frown. "How did you get them past security?"

"Bribed them," she said airily. "Cookies."

"That doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in our national security, Donna." He scowled as one of the kittens walked over his desk blotter and peered off the edge of the desk, obviously contemplating a leap. "God knows what's next, you bring in a warhead and a pan of fudge?"

She rolled her eyes. "Lighten up, Josh. It's not like there've never been pets in the White House before, and they're not here to stay. They can spend the day tucked up in here and nobody will ever even notice. I'll pop out at five to drop them off at the vet, then come back here and do the extra three hours of work you're definitely going to want from me without even complaining about it. Deal?"

Josh sighed. He could fight this, and there was a time in his life when he would've fought this, but he was older now, and wiser. There was no way he was getting through this day without a bunch of kittens in his office. At least he had no major meetings coming to him. "Where's my bribe?" he demanded.

Donna beamed at him and popped the lid off the baking pan, offering him a chocolate chip cookie nearly the size of his outspread hand. "There's another one in it for you at the end of the day if you can refrain from yelling at them," she promised. "The big gray one is Fred, and the little gray one is Velma," she explained, just as Fred leapt to the floor and scampered away to explore the bookshelf. "Daphne is the white seal-pointed one, and the orange guy is Shaggy."

"I assume the mom is Scooby Doo?"

"Lady Elaine Fairchild," Donna corrected. "Who names a cat Scooby Doo? I'll be right back with your schedule and a bowl of water."

"Who names a cat Fred?" Josh asked rhetorically to the kittens remaining on his desk. They didn't seem to know. "All right, I need to get some work done here, and nobody is allowed to pee on my files, under penalty of... really horrifying things. Shoo." He tried gently brushing his hands in their direction to chase them away from the files he was working on. Shaggy gave ground quickly, leaping to the floor as well, but Daphne seemed to take the gesture personally, flattening her ears to her skull and hissing at him.

"Well I see who you take after," he muttered. He solved the problem for the moment by scooting over to one side of the desk and ceding the other to the kitten, who began to explore his office supplies. If these kittens weren't housebroken, there was going to be hell to pay, he could say that much for certain.

Donna was back in just a couple of minutes with water and schedule in hand. "Move the cat," Josh insisted, glaring at the little seal-pointed interloper. Donna cooed and scooped her up. "Aw, Daphne, did you scare poor Josh away from his desk? That wasn't very nice of you. Mister Joshua is your friend." Josh resisted the urge to bounce his head off the desktop, but it was a close call.

A quick rap on the door announced a new arrival seconds before Zoey Bartlet bounced into the room. "Hi Donna! Josh, you've got to help me with my government- oh my god. You have kittens!" Zoe squealed in a register only audible to dogs and scooped a gray kitten up off the bookshelf they'd been scaling. "Look at themthey'resoADORABLE!"

"That's Velma," Donna said with placid good cheer, and introduced the rest of the litter all over again, to Zoey's great delight and Josh's chagrin. "They're eight weeks old and I'm trying to find homes for them."

Zoey's eyes got big. "I've gotta go somewhere," she told Donna. "I'll bring her back in a little bit." She darted out the door, kitten still in her arms and her Secret Service agent following at a trot.

"If one of these cats ends up a White House pet, CJ's going to kill you," Josh advised.

"Why?" Donna asked defensively, scratching Daphne under the chin. Daphne did not hiss at Donna. "They're photogenic enough."

"Because White House pets are second only to White House babies in terms of reporters clamoring for fluffy photo opportunities, and guess who gets to handle all of those?" Josh grinned. "CJ doesn't even like cats."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," Donna decided. "I'll just remind her about the curse of Bast."

"The what?"

"Nothing." Donna put Daphne down, right in the middle of the damn desk again, Josh noted, and began to read off his schedule. Fairly light, actually, but it was already shaping up to be a long day.

Half an hour later, he was realizing he had drastically underestimated the length of the day ahead. It hadn't even been half an hour before Fred and Shaggy had knocked over the wastebasket in a wrestling match and Shaggy had managed to climb all the way to Josh's lap with the aid of twenty tiny razor-claws in his pants. Donna, attracted by Josh's yell, had come in and detached the kitten by means of some kind of hidden off switch in its neck, whereby it released its grip, curled its tail up under it and hung from her fingers, looking vaguely mutinous.

"Jesus, Donna, don't you take out their claws or something before you let them in people's houses?" Josh groused loudly, rubbing his leg and trying not to notice the minute pulls in the fabric of his suit.

"No, that's cruel!" Donna cried, instantly cuddling Shaggy in her cupped hands and rubbing the offended fur on his neck. "Declawing amputates their toes at the knuckle, they never walk right afterwards, and it affect their temperament-"

"What the hell is going on in here?" Toby asked, walking into the room with his typical sour first-thing-in-the-morning expression. He paused instantly when Fred skidded headfirst into his shoe, righted himself, then continued his wild carom across the office. "Josh, your office is full of cats. Or we have a really unusual rodent problem," he added calmly.

"Probably some of both," Josh agreed. "Please tell me I can go to senior staff now."

"It's as good a time as any," Toby informed him. His expression had lightened somewhat at seeing Josh's great dismay. He was almost -almost- smiling as her added, "You probably don't want to let that one eat your files, though." Toby pointed at Daphne, who was enthusiastically teething on the edge of a blue folder.

Josh squawked and reached for the kitten but Donna was faster, dumping Shaggy into Toby's hands and scooping up the errant kitten. "Don't be naughty!" she commanded Daphne, who looked unimpressed. Toby, meanwhile, was regarding Shaggy like an alien life form he'd found in his breakfast cereal. Daphne wound up on the floor, to her great and evident displeasure, and Donna grabbed Shaggy back before he could do to Toby's suit what he'd done to Josh's. "Senior staff!" she reminded the two men, nudging them out the door and closing it behind them.

"Do you think it's strange," Toby asked idly, "that she talks to you the same way she talks to the kittens?" Josh glowered at him.

By the time Josh got back from senior staff, his office was not only full of felines, but senior assistants as well. They cleared out as he approached, all except for Donna, who was stacking his morning files and placing post-it notes of barely decipherable but undeniably valuable commentary on the important ones. He closed the door and looked around suspiciously. Daphne was on the windowsill, playing with the pull-cord for the blinds, and Fred was crunching away loudly at the food bowl. He carefully checked in the foot well of his desk, and on his chair before sitting down. "Donna, are we short another cat?" The only thing worse than having an office full of kittens was an office full of kittens that you could not find.

"Carol took Shaggy over to CJ's office to show the gaggle," Donna told him. "She thinks it'll soften them up on the thing with defense spending. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard, and maybe somebody will want a kitten. She can leave him in CJ's office during the press briefing."

Josh's eyes widened slightly. "Donna, CJ has a pet fish."

"Gail will go on Carol's desk. She's less likely to make a run for it."

"Well then, by all means," Josh agreed with a grin. "In fact, we could put all the kittens in there."

"Joooosh." Donna finished her pile and left, obviously believing that his excellent idea wasn't even worth rebutting.

"Well, it's better than the turkeys," Josh told Fred and Daphne. They seemed to agree.

Despite early indications, most of the morning passed relatively quietly, as measured by White House standards. Fred and Daphne wrestled for awhile while Josh read his briefing notes, but from what Josh could see, Fred did not have the killer instinct to be a contender. Zoey stopped by again with Velma, who was cradled belly-up in Zoey's arm like a human baby and seemed content to stay like that indefinitely, but it was only to steal some of Donna's cat food.

"If she's already in the house and has food and all her stuff, it's that much harder for Mom and Dad to say no," Zoey reasoned brightly.

"You're gonna get me fired, kid," Josh predicted dolefully. "What about the litter stuff?"

"Charlie's getting it for me on his lunch break. He likes cats," Zoey confided. "I think we can share this one." She sailed out with a paper coffee cup full of kitten chow, on a mission to make Josh's professional life more difficult.

Just before lunch, Donna stuck her head in to report that she'd heard from some of the assistants on the Hill that Senator Brewster was about to break ranks on the newest highways bill. That galvanized Josh into immediate action, sending him to his phone to explain, with great vitriol and substantial volume, exactly what hell the senator would be raining down upon himself if he were to make the colossal mistake of not standing with his President and his party on this vital piece of legislation. As he was reaching his crescendo, Daphne, who was somehow back on his desk again, laid her ears back at the noise, but apparently decided that Josh was not an actual immediate danger. She found the one sunny spot next to his computer and curled up for a nap, oblivious to the yelling.

Brewster's big move had been part feint, part adolescent cry for attention, so it didn't take too long to sort him back into his place. Donna came in with Josh's lunch in the early afternoon, but he was absorbed in his notes and didn't pay much attention till she started cooing. "Oh, that's so sweet!"

He looked up to realize he'd been idly petting Daphne while he read, eliciting a small, high-pitched purr from the tiny cat. He immediately snatched his hand away, glaring at both females. "It doesn't mean anything, it was just... reflex. What's my next thing?"

"You have fifteen luxurious minutes to eat your healthy and delicious lunch, followed by the meeting with legislative affairs in the Roosevelt Room, then you're staffing the president from 2:30 to 4, and then... Good afternoon, ma'am." Donna hastily stepped out of the way as Abbey Bartlet walked into the room, fixing its occupants with a gimlet-eyed stare.

Josh rose as well, struggling not to swallow visibly. "Ma'am?"

Abbey focused on him. "Joshua Lyman, did you give my daughter a kitten this morning?"

That was easy, at least. Josh instantly turned on Donna in a full j'accuse posture. "I was ambushed, ma'am. It was all Donna."

Donna quailed. "It was sort of an accident?" she offered. "I brought them in for the day because they need to go to the vet at five, and I usually don't get home till eight or nine." Abbey raised a brow at that, and Josh made a note to get even with Donna later. "Zoey came in to talk to Josh about something, and she saw the kittens, and I think it was love at first sight."

To back up her position, Donna bent down and scooped Fred from where he'd been sleeping on the windowsill, which was not actually enough to wake him up. He yawned and stretched in Donna's hands, showing tiny tongue and tiny claws, then flopped down into unconsciousness again. Abbey's face softened. "Well, they are awfully cute," she allowed, stepping forward to run her fingertips over Fred's soft gray fur. With a herculean effort of self-preservation, Josh refrained from rolling his eyes.

"This is Fred," Donna explained, "he and Velma looked exactly alike for a long time, but you can see how he's bigger now, and he's got that black smudge on his nose. They like to sleep together at night, and their fur is so alike that it's hard to tell where one leaves off and the other starts. But Velma's the shy one, she takes a little while to warm up. Fred never met a stranger."

She offered the kitten to the First Lady, who sighed a little, but accepted the fuzzy handful. "You know," Abbey mused, "Jed is going to go ballistic. He keeps talking about getting a dog."

"If you start early enough, it's easy to socialize cats and dogs together," Donna offered. "Especially if the kittens outnumber the puppies and keep them humble."

"Hmm," Abbey said. "Donna, are you trying to give me another kitten when I came in here to yell at you about the first kitten?"

Donna clasped her hands together and gave the first lady an ingenuous smile. "Kittens do best in pairs, ma'am, and do you really think that Zoey is going to give up on Velma now?"

Abbey gave Donna a narrow-eyed look, but simultaneously continued stroking the kitten, who was purring loudly now. "If my husband complains about this, you know where I'm sending him, don't you?" She swept out, kitten and all, and Donna gave Josh a wide-eyed look.

Josh grinned at her. "Somebody's in trou-ble."

"Do you think anybody would notice if I went home sick?" Donna asked in a small voice.

"I would notice, and at the end of the day that's really what matters, isn't it?" he asked grandly. "But I'll be staffing the President this afternoon, I could always ask him what he thinks..."

"I am going to put live crickets in your food," Donna threatened.

Josh raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one."

"I'll do it. I'm a woman on the edge."

"Way over the edge," he corrected. "Over the edge years ago." In a much improved mood now, he scooped Daphne off the desk and put her on his shoulder like a parrot. "Come on, Daphne, let's go bother CJ and let the mean lady think about why she should be nicer to her incredibly magnanimous boss."

He strode down the corridor (swaggered was a very pejorative word, to his way of thinking), Donna scurrying after him like he knew she would, and ignored the stares he got from other staffers. "Hey CJ!" he called as soon as he reached the general vicinity of her office. "Where's the cat? I know somebody who's collecting them!"

CJ stepped into her doorway and leaned against it, looking Josh up and down. "Interesting look for you, Josh. All you need now are sharks with fricking lasers on their heads." She grinned. "And I don't have the cat anymore. I gave it away."

"What?" Donna asked, sounding a bit alarmed.

"You wanted to find homes for them, right?" CJ asked. "I gave him to Danny."

Josh laughed. "Turnabout is fair play?"

"Hey, they were a perfect match, a couple of scruffy redheads," CJ pointed out.

"Does Danny actually have a home?" Donna asked. "I kind of thought he just lived in the press room."

"Of course he has a home, he has a nice little two-bedroom townhouse in-" CJ broke off suddenly, realizing she might have given something away there.

Josh wasn't about to leave that one laying in the dirt. "Maybe you two could take joint custody of the kitten," he suggested. "You'd have to go over to water it and take care of it, but maybe that wouldn't be such a hardship. Or maybe you can just tell us some more about Danny's house?"

Donna intervened by grabbing Josh's arm and dragging him away, probably saving his life in the process. "Legislative affairs, Roosevelt Room!" she reminded him, pressing a file into his hands and removing the kitten from his shoulder.

"You know, Legislative Affairs works for me, I think I should be able to keep them waiting if I want to," Josh began, but subsided at her authoritative point towards the Roosevelt Room. He managed to finish with them just in time to get back to his office and his forgotten lunch, some kind of gazpacho that was probably pretty bad when it was cold, but was completely disgusting at room temperature. He ate the rest of the cookie from Donna and contemplated ordering a pizza while she was at the vet. Though at this rate, he supposed, she wasn't going to have any kittens to take with her. Neither Donna nor any of her fuzzy interloping confederates were in his office, which was only a little bit disappointing and he wasn't even going to admit to that much.

Staffing the president was hectic, which was hardly unusual. He had five back-to-back fifteen minute meetings scheduled, and it was Josh's job to keep them each fifteen minutes or less. He had no time to think of cats at all until almost four o'clock, when there was finally a short break in the schedule. Josh was rifling through his notes when the President unexpectedly leaned forward and pressed his intercom button. "All right Nancy, send her in."

The door opened and Donna walked in, looking as though she were simultaneously trying to stand up straight and disappear through the floor of the Oval Office. "You wanted to see me, sir?" she asked, her voice tiny.

President Bartlet rose to his feet, staying behind his desk but leaning on it in a very authoritative pose. "Donnatella Moss," he began with a great deal of foreboding. "What do you know about cats?"

Donna folded her hands in front of her. "Ah, cats came to North America with the first European colonists to help control the rodent population. They're the only mammals who cannot taste sweetness, and they can jump six times their own length. Owning a cat has been shown to reduce blood pressure and can help prevent heart attack and stroke-"

The President waved a hand, "Yes, yes, that's all very interesting," he said dismissively, then immediately backtracked. "Can't taste sweetness? Huh." He shook his head. "I should've been more specific. "What do you know about the two very small cats currently sleeping in a laundry basket in my living room, who I am informed by reliable sources are now my cats, courtesy of one Donna Moss, Senior Assistant?"

Josh knew for a fact that the President was messing with Donna, knew that if President Bartlet were really upset, he'd never be taking this tone of fatherly menace with her, but he still had the strangest urge to step forward and defend her. Before he could say or do anything, though, she spoke up herself. "Their names are Velma and Fred, Mr. President. My roommate has two cats, but two months ago a pregnant stray showed up on our doorstep and we couldn't turn her away. She was very sweet and obviously not feral, so we think she was probably someone's pet who got lost or abandoned. She had four kittens and we've been taking care of them, but our lease only allows three pets per apartment. We've been socializing the kittens since birth, and they've had their first two sets of shots already. They're very sweet and loving, and Fred is afraid of feathers."

The President considered that for a moment. "That was actually not quite what I had in mind either, but again, interesting and useful information."

"I didn't give Zoey the kitten, sir," Donna blurted out suddenly. "I was just putting them in Josh's office for the day, but she saw her and fell in love. But Fred and Velma love each other and deserve to stay together, so I did nudge the First Lady towards taking him too, and I apologize for that, sir, but really you can still get a puppy if you want one and there shouldn't be any trouble."

There was a beat of silence, with the President regarding Donna and Donna clenching her hands together tightly enough to turn the knuckles white, and then he burst out laughing. "Don't worry about it, Donna. I'm just winding you up," he admitted. "Once Zoey and her mother get an idea into their heads, they're an unstoppable force. You and I alike are powerless against them. I really just wanted to see if you would try and blame your boss."

Donna laughed breathily, a little color returning to her alabaster skin. "I try to only blame Josh for things that are his fault, sir," she told the President. "He's been a good sport all day."

"The one real question I have," President Bartlet continued, "is about the names. Must they really be Fred and Velma forever?"

"No sir," Donna told him earnestly. "We gave them kitten names, but you can name them whatever you like. They won't recognize it at first, but some do as they get older."

"You can call them anything you want, they still won't come to you," Josh surmised.

"Maybe a little," Donna agreed.

"That's good news," the President declared. "I had enough people complaining that Zoey was too avant garde for a first daughter's name, but there's no changing that. They complained it was spelled wrong, can you believe it? Somebody will probably run a national poll on cat names before the first litter box change."

"Possibly, sir," Donna agreed, obviously not quite sure she was in the clear yet.

"What a world. Donna, go and tell CJ that she's going to have to deal with the news about Zoey's new pets, I'm sure she'll be very pleased to hear it. And no more kittens, clear?"

"Yes sir, thank you Mister President," Donna said with a relieved smile before scurrying away. Josh watched her go, grinning until he realized the President was watching him and schooled his face into more sober lines.

"Now what really surprises me is that you're not taking home one of those kittens, Josh," President Bartlet commented as he sat back down and began going through his papers.

"Sir?" Josh asked.

"Abbey mentioned that Donna worked her pretty hard in the interests of finding a home for those little creatures. It has not escaped my notice that you have on a number of occasions done things you wouldn't normally have done in the interests of making your assistant happy." The President's voice was mild, but his eyes were bright and amused by Josh's sudden discomfort.

"Oh, I'm, ah, I'm not really a cat person, sir," Josh demurred. "And I'm not home very much anyway, I wouldn't be able to take care of a cat."

"True, I suppose." The talk turned to other matters then, and before Josh knew it, it was quarter til five and he was heading back to his office. Donna was already there, throwing away the used litter and picking up dishes, returning his office to its pre-kennel state. Daphne had discovered the strap of Josh's backpack and was treating it like a mortal enemy, pouncing on it and savaging it with tiny milk teeth.

Josh paused and surveyed the scene for a moment. Only one kitten left, he realized. "Donna, do you want me to adopt Daphne?" he asked suddenly, and immediately wanted to shove the words back down his own throat. Of all the ridiculous things...

Donna looked up at him, surprised and curious. "Do I want you to?"

"You know, I mean, she still needs a home, right? The other ones all got adopted. I was just thinking that if they all had homes, you wouldn't have to worry about it," he explained awkwardly. "And Daphne's not so bad, we got along okay. She kind of reminds me of you."

It was hard to read Donna's expression while he was talking, but she grinned at the last part. "Siamese kittens are talkers," she agreed. "It's nice of you to offer, but it's really okay, Ed's going to take her. His daughter's birthday is next week and she wants a kitten really badly, so we're going to hold onto Daphne one more week so we don't spoil the surprise. But thanks." She gave him one of her big smiles, the kind that warmed him all the way through and made him wonder what it might be like if he ever made her really, truly happy. But that was dangerous territory, and best avoided.

He scooped Daphne up off the floor. "That's enough killing my backpack, wretched thing," he told the kitten. "You're an adult now, and although you're very lucky you have no balls to lose, after tomorrow things are going to be different. You'd better start learning some manners. And maybe get a job, so you don't end up a big drain on society." He gave Daphne one last scritch under the chin and put her back in the blue carrier. Lonely and confined, she immediately started complaining.

"Poor baby," Donna said with a laugh. "She's so spoiled. I'll be back in forty-five minutes or so, want me to bring something back?"

"Only if it's actually edible this time," he told her. "And hot."

"You got it, boss," she told him flippantly, picking up the protesting carrier. At the door, she turned back. "Thanks for being so nice about today."

"You're welcome," he told her, trying not to soften too visibly. "You owe me another cookie."

"After your dinner," she promised, and then she was gone out the door. Josh stretched and sat down in his chair in the blessed quiet and peace. That lasted for about ten seconds, and then everything just seemed a little bit too empty. Maybe he'd pay Donna a visit sometime, meet Lady Elaine. That wouldn't be too weird, really.