Author: Hanna Morgan
E-mail address: The Lyman Family
Characters: Josh and Donna
Category: Alternate Universe; drama
Pairing: J/D
Rating: YTEEN
Chapter OneDisclaimer: I don't own West Wing or any of its character. I do not own any of the songs used in this story. The original characters in this story belong to me.
Jessica Simpson – "You Don't Have to Let Go"I don't need your strength anymore
Cuz you've made me strong
You may not see the woman in meThat you dreamed of holding me in your arms
All the days that you gave
All the moments you saved me
Praying for my life
Sacrifice just to make me
Who I am on my own
You don't have to let go
You don't say it
But it's in your eyes
All the fear of goodbye
But I can promise
You'll always have a place and
A way to my heart
All the days that you gave
All the moments you saved me
Praying for my life
Sacrifice just to make me
Who I am on my own
You don't have to let go
I can live cuz you lived for me
And I can love because you loved me
All the days that you gave
All the moments you saved me
Praying all my life
Sacrifice just to make me
Who I am on my own
You don't have to let go
You don't have to let go
One of Josh and Donna Lyman's twin daughters, Audrey, was busy getting dressed into her workout gear. On her perfect size four body that she'd inherited from her mother, she put on black Adidas tear-away pants, a yellow sports bra and a white tank top along with New Balance tennis shoes. Her beautiful, straight blonde hair was pulled back in a messy bun with a pink elastic headband to hold it back. As a member of her high school cross-country team, Audrey needed to run every day to keep her fitness up.
She and her sister Kaitlyn, knew, however, that their father and mother also had very high academic expectations. Their parents were, after all, both members of the United States Congress. As juniors, the twins were preparing for the SATs (the second time) and applying to colleges, many of them Ivy League. Both girls were enrolled in challenging, college-level courses such as Advanced Placement Government, AP Chemistry and AP English. Audrey and Katie were very bright, and their parents were strict about grades and general expectations. It was midterms, so Josh had been especially diligent about reminding them of this.
The twins had grown up in a very competitive high-stakes world with both parents as politicians. They'd learned early that certain expectations had been set upon them that perhaps other children didn't have. Both were blessed with high IQ's and were very capable students but, nonetheless, pressure was an evil thing. From the time they were three years old, they'd been sent to the best schools in Virginia. They both had the drive to do well, but Josh and Donna were always there to push them along and remind them of what was expected.
Audrey and Kaitlyn were like any other set of twin girls growing up in the 21st and 20th centuries. They were best friends, bonded tighter than any regular set of sisters. But they were vastly different in both physical appearance and personality. Audrey, the older twin by ten minutes, had straight, blonde hair just like her mother's and stood tall. She was vibrant, witty and passionate with a mouth to match. Kaitlyn, who was also tall, had dark brown, curly hair like her father. She was also smart as a whip but was more reserved. She had her passions, but chose to express them through actions and not through words like her sister.
Josh sat at the breakfast bar in the family kitchen reading some political jibber jabber when Audrey walked in dressed in her running gear. She looked forward to her running time each day. It was a chance to get away from the day's worries, and the pressure of college applications. She stood by the bar and started stretching her right leg up from behind.
"Well, I'm going running." She told her father.
"Do you have all your homework done?" He automatically asked.
She rolled her eyes and that earned her a warning look from her dad.
"No, dad. It's only 5:30. You know I'll be up till around midnight." She switched legs.
"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Studying and sleep need to come before running.
"I'll get kicked off the team if I don't run every day, dad."
"Well, you know our expectations about grades. If you don't keep them up, we'll take you off the team anyway. Academics always come first. And sleep."
"I know, dad. You remind me a lot." She retorted. "I know you wouldn't take me off the Young Democrats, though." She joked and gave him a sweet smile.
"Ha ha. Very funny."
"See ya in forty five."
"Bye pumpkin."
The next day, Josh got an email from Mr. Hilman, who had both girls in AP English. Audrey had failed her midterm, an essay on Hamlet. He'd emailed Mr. Lyman because it was so out of character for Audrey to get anything below a 'B'. Josh didn't know what to think. She'd never gotten anything lower than a 'C' in her life (and they had to listen to her moaning for a week). He emailed Mr. Hilman back to thank him and assured him it would be discussed at home. How could she have bombed this so badly? He was worried and slightly angry, but wanted to give her the opportunity to come clean and tell him what happened.
When Audrey came home that evening, Josh beat around the bush a little about the subject.
"Hi, dad." She greeted him cheerily as she plopped her 20 pound bookbag on the floor and kissed him on the cheek.
"Hey, babe." He kissed her back.
"Uh….I'm starving!" she exclaimed, making her way to the fridge and retrieving an apple.
"Dinner's in an hour."
"Okay. Just one apple." She leaned on the counter.
Josh sighed. "So, how's your day?"
Audrey looked away. "Oh, fine. Same old, same old. High school drama."
"Nothing bad happened?" he probed.
Audrey shot him a puzzled look. "No. Why are you being so negative?"
"No reason." He lied, disappointed that he'd have to bring her midterms up. "How are your midterms going?"
"Just fine, dad." She said, uneasily. He was making her uncomfortable. He couldn't know about her English midterm, could he? Unless…
"I got an email from Mr. Hilman today." He stated coolly.
Oh shit, she thought. If there was one thing that ticked her father off more than republicans, it was lying. And he'd caught her in a bold-faced one.
"Apparently, you failed his midterm over Hamlet. Do you know anything about that?"
Audrey stopped eating her apple and put the heel of her hand on the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, avoiding her dad's stare.
"Audrey." He calmly called again. "Pick your head up and talk to me."
She did as he asked and saw a disappointed face looking back at her, eyebrows raised.
"I thought we were having a multiple choice test, but it turned out to be an essay. I wasn't prepared."
He wasn't buying it for a minute. "Audrey, you and I both know that arguing is one of your strongsuits. You're on the debate team. You could have BS-ed your way through that essay, no problem. Now, tell me what's really going on."
"Dad, I just bombed…"
"Audrey!" he said a little more harshly than he intended "Quit tiptoeing around. Tell me happened! How the hell did you bomb this midterm?"
Josh saw tears brimming at Audrey's eyes.
" I…" she stopped when she heard her voice shake.
"Go on." He urged gently.
She took a cleansing breath.
"I didn't have time to read the book."
Josh shifted his weight, disturbed by the news.
"You didn't have time to read the book?" he repeated, which was never a good sign. He stood with one hand on his hip. "Why was that?"
She slammed her hand down on the counter. "Because you and mom made me take so many damn AP classes, I don't have time to study for them all!"
"Do not raise your voice to me!" he warned her. "You can handle the workload, Audrey. I think you have too many extracurricular activities going on."
"I live for extracurriculars, dad, because it's my only escape from school and from you and mom!" She immediately regretted the cheap shot.
"Watch it, Audrey!" he yelled.
"And who are you to know what I can handle?" she was gesturing angrily.
"I am taking you off the swim team and yearbook staff so you can concentrate on school."
"Dad!" she pleaded.
"And you are grounded until you bring your English grade back up to an 'A'".
She looked down, defeated. "This is so unfair." She muttered, glaring back up at him.
"And you have dishwashing duty for a week for lying to me about it."
She was about to burst.
"Now go to your room and get busy on your homework."
She stormed off to her bedroom, slamming the door to let her father know her displeasure.
Josh sighed and apathetically started cooking dinner (spaghetti, one of the few things he could cook), but his mind remained on his daughter.
Before he could beat himself up too much, his wife Donna arrived home about 20 minutes later.
"Hey, babe." He greeted her, stirring the spaghetti.
"Hi honey." She said. She walked over to him after putting her bag down and wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing him on the neck. "That surprisingly smells good."
"Maybe it'll lure Audrey out of her room for dinner."
She released her embrace with her husband.
"What's wrong?"
Josh dramatically sighed. "Got an email from her English teacher to say she failed the midterm. So I confronted her about it."
"Audrey failed something?"
"And that's not all."
"There's more?"
"She lied to me about it. Said she hadn't heard about any midterms."
Donna let out an annoyed and confused sigh. "What'd you do?"
"I told her she was grounded until she brought her grade up to an 'A'. And she's got dishes for lying about it."
"How did she fail something? She's never gotten below a 'C' on…anything. Her only 'C' was on that home ec. project last year." Both parents briefly smiled at the fact she'd inherited the Lyman cooking gene instead of the preferred Moss.
"Said she didn't have enough time to read the book. Do you think we should take her out of some stuff?"
"Yeah, I think we should. She needs to concentrate on school. The Ivy League's pretty picky."
"Well, she's not too happy about it."
"Not surprised. Well, we have two fowl-ups in one day." Donna sadly reported.
"What? What did Katie do?"
"She started mouthing off to me in the car on the way home when I talked to her about college apps."
Josh scrunched his face up. "What the hell has gotten into them?"
"Well, you've cooked the past few nights. Maybe it's your fault."
Josh acted mock-insulted. "Hey, I'm the good parent. I'm home before…" he glanced at his watch "7:15." Donna replaced his hurt face by giving him a kiss.
"So what did you do, anyway, sub-par parent?"
He got smacked for that one.
"She's not going anywhere tonight. She's outside playing basketball."
"Great. Dinner's gonna be fun."
"Yeah." She sighed.
"Well, I'm going to go talk to her. This needs to be nipped in the bud." He walked around the counter heading towards the garage.
"Joshua Lyman, are you using this as an excuse to go play basketball?"
"Darling, I am merely partaking in my daughter's upbringing."
"Yeah, whatever." She gave him a playful look. "Don't cheat."
Josh smiled as he went out the garage door and headed towards the driveway, where his other daughter, Kaitlyn, was dribbling a basketball quite fiercely. Her dark curly brown hair had been pulled back into a messy bun. She took after her mother personality-wise but her hair was a stark contrast from Donna's. And his. Kaitlyn always joked that Donna loved their mailman. She was stubborn and emotional, and also had a sharp tongue like her sister, which often got her into trouble. Katie and Josh were like two peas in a pod. He regularly pissed off Audrey, but he and Katie were best buds, which is why he thought he could help her out.
"Hey." He called out, causing her to spin around with a most unwelcoming glare on her pretty face. He held his hands up, asking for the ball. She angrily bounced it to him.
"What!" she put her hands on her hips.
Josh raised his eyebrows in warning as he dribbled the ball.
"Your mom tells me you had a little problem in the car." He shot the ball and made it.
Katie retrieved it.
"Well doesn't mom know everything." She said mockingly, once again pounding the ball against the ground, trying to release her anger. Unlike her relationship with her father, she wasn't too attached to her mother.
"Are you trying to kill the ball?" he tried to lighten the mood. She just glared back at him and continued the motion.
"If she wants me to write my friggin' college essay, she should just stop asking me about it and maybe I would do it."
Typical Kaitlyn, he thought to himself. Stubborn as a mule. She hated being told to do things, especially by her mother.
"Well you know, it is pretty important if you want to get in to a good school."
"Believe me, I know that dad." She answered back quickly as she made a lay-up from the right. "But I'm only a junior. I have the whole summer."
"That's a reasonable argument." He admitted. But he also knew kids didn't work in the summer. Who would want to? There's a whole three months to procrastinate by going to the beach and doing God knows what.
"Thank you." She said, a little pleased with herself.
"But Kaitlyn, we've talked about this before. It's the way you disagree."
"Please, dad!" she raised her voice. "I don't need this right now!"
"Katie, you want to be treated like an adult, but you aren't taking the responsibilities. You need to hear this." The conversation turned serious and they both stood still. Katie kept the ball rested on her right hip. "Your mother and I have a little more life experience than you. Do we know everything? No." he answered his own question. "But we know you really have to be on top of your game to get ahead. We both know what it takes to get into Harvard. You can get there if you want. If you take the right steps. That's why we're strict with grades and push you to take those AP courses."
Josh's eyes were locked on his daughter's and he saw tears brimming in them, but she looked down to try to hide it. Oh Christ, he thought. Two daughters crying in one day. Just what he needed.
"Katie…" he dropped his voice and walked towards her. He was a sucker for tears. He felt his insides turn to mush.
She put a hand up in refusal.
"I've worked my ass off all throughout high school…" she quickly corrected herself "No, all my life. And what I've done isn't enough to impress the Ivy League? 3.95 G.P.A, 1540 SATs, extracurriculars and honor classes out the wazoo. What the hell else do they want, dad? What else can I do?" she was getting irate.
She broke down in tears and the protective side of Josh came out and even though she'd pushed him away before, he pulled her swiftly into a hug as she let out her frustrations in tears.
"Shhhhh." He whispered, one hand stroking her hair. "I know it's so hard."
"I can't do any more, dad." She cried, her voice muffled from being buried in her father's shoulder.
He kissed her head and then rested his chin on it. He just held her and rocked back and forth for a few minutes like he had so many times before.
After she'd calmed down, he gently removed her from her hiding place. He kept his hands on Katie's shoulders and tilted his head to try to look into her eyes, but she continued to look down.
"Look at me." He directed softly. She reluctantly did so and met his gaze.
"Life's full of tough things, okay? But you've gotta keep your chin up and you have to rise above it all. You can do it all, Katie. You're a Lyman. A Moss-Lyman."
She nodded and offered him a small smile. Josh took her head in his hands and kissed her gently on the forehead and hugged her one more time.
"Good girl. Harvard's not that great anyway." He joked to make her feel better. "I bet dinner's about ready."
"Is Audrey home?" she inquired.
"Yeah, but she's not too happy. She's grounded too, but for much longer." He said, letting Katie know she hadn't gotten out of anything for crying.
"For what?"
"She failed Hamlet."
"She did? I thought it was easy."
"Yeah. Hilman said you aced it. Nice job. Apparently she didn't have time to read it." He opened the door for his daughter.
"I'm not surprised."
"We're taking her out of yearbook and swimming."
"So she hates you right now?"
"She loathes me, Katie." He corrected her.
"She'll get over it." She said confidently as they reached the kitchen.
"Hey." Donna greeted them from the spaghetti sauce. "Have you calmed down now?"
Katie sighed. "Yeah." Josh looked at her, silently urging her to say something to her mother. He read his wife well, knowing that she was hurt by what Katie had said. "Sorry I snapped at you, mom. I'm really stressed out."
"I'm only trying to help you get into college, honey. I know the whole process is intimidating and tedious, but is has to be done."
Katie looked down. "Yeah." She agreed. "Thanks for putting up with me." She offered an apology. Josh looked over at his youngest daughter, patted her on the back and then gave her a supportive kiss on her right temple.
"Will you go get your sister for dinner?" Donna asked her.
"Sure." She hopped off to the bedroom of her twin sister, which was adjoined to her own by a bathroom and vanity center.
Once Kaitlyn was out of earshot, Donna began. "So, did you work your Lyman magic?" Donna teased.
Josh rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb the way he always did when he didn't know what to do.
"She broke down." He told her seriously.
"Really?"
"She's really stressed out about this college stuff and being good enough and all that. She was crying."
"Was she?" Donna said, her forehead slightly wrinkled from thought.
"Does she ever talk about this stuff with you?"
"No, not really. She's always been closer to you, Josh. She can open up to you."
"Lucky me." He looked away.
"Hey, you should be thankful that your daughter feels so close to you. Most teenage girls hate their fathers."
"I am, Donna." He admitted. "But I want her to be close to both of us, you know?"
Donna stopped what she was doing. "Josh. Katie and I have a great relationship. I am fine with it. She may hate me sometimes, but that's to be expected. As long as she has one parent she can really talk to, that's all that matters." She looked at him seriously.
Josh looked at his wife lovingly, thankful that she was such a wonderful and selfless mother. He always felt like goofy dad, but she always made him feel important. He walked over to his wife of twenty years and cupped her face in his hands and slowly kissed her. Before they knew it, they'd been kissing for about a minute when they were interrupted by Katie returning.
"Ugh!" she exclaimed, startling them a bit "Let's tone down the PDA, please! I'm about to eat dinner."
"Shut up." Josh told her. He kissed Donna one last time on the lips and then they both started taking things to the table.
"Is your sister coming?" Josh asked Katie.
"Yeah, she'll be here. She's just being stubborn."
"What a surprise." He muttered. "Audrey! Dinner's on the table!" he yelled down the hall. He heard some hideous form of music playing behind the closed door.
About a minute later, Audrey apathetically trudged into the room with a scowl on her face.
During dinner, Donna, Josh and Katie spoke warmly about their days (except for the car incident) whereas Audrey sat silently, poking at her food with her fork, glaring at her father. This was not lost on Josh, who called her on it near the end of the meal.
"So Audrey. Is there something you want to say to me? You've been sending me the evil eye the entire meal." He looked to his right where Audrey was sitting.
She didn't answer. He could tell she was stirring things up in her mind, thinking of something smart-alek to say. She was a very smart girl with a wit to match.
"Good. I'm not in the mood to get into it with you." He was a little disappointed in himself for the low blow and he could tell Donna was too, reading the body language he knew so well after over 20 years together. But she would never say anything in front of the girls. They were a united front.
"I'll check in at a more convenient time for you when you're done falling in love with yourself."
There it was.
He did everything he could to hold his temper, but it was very difficult. Josh knew he couldn't let her know she'd gotten the best of him. When dealing with his teenage daughters, he had to make sure he was the adult.
Donna waited for the rage, but it didn't come.
"Audrey," he started, doing his best to remain calm, but his voice was edgy. "I suggest you adjust your attitude right now."
She gave him a challenging look.
"You need to leave the table." Donna told her.
Josh prayed she wouldn't say anything else because he knew he'd snap and it wouldn't be pretty. Audrey knew this also and decided not to in order to avoid further punishment. She knew she'd gone far enough. Audrey got up from her chair, not without attitude, and stormed off to her room slamming the door. The horrendous music came on again.
Josh put his head in his hands and sighed heavily. Audrey's outburst had really put a damper on things, needless to say. Nobody spoke for a minute or so as Josh took long, calming breaths. Then Katie asked if she could be excused.
"Sure honey." Her mother replied. Josh continued to look down. Donna put a supportive hand on her husbands' forearm, causing him to finally look at her.
"It'll pass." She said comfortingly.
"I don't understand her, Donna. We used to be so close…"
"Like you and Katie are now?" she finished his sentence for him.
"Yeah." He said, looking at his wife like an epiphany had just come over him.
"Well, Katie's the one you're close to and Audrey not so much. But that's okay. There's still another parent, remember?"
"Yeah." He smiled slightly.
"Now it's your turn to be the evil parent." She joked. That got a small chuckle. "I'll give her a few minutes to cool off and I'll go talk to her, okay?"
"Okay," he whispered. "Thanks."
"Are you still gonna make her do the dishes?"
"No. We'll leave it for tonight. She might purposely break them." She had done so when she was forced to do the dishes when she was nine years old.
Josh decided to stay away from Audrey the rest of the night. He knew she was angry with him and he really didn't want to get into it with her. Donna seemed to be in her room for hours. He wondered what they were talking about.
He finally decided to go talk with Katie, who was busy doing AP Chemistry homework on the floor of her bedroom. He gently knocked on the door.
"Katie-bell?" he called her. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah." She called back. Josh came in and closed the door. He saw her on the floor and pulled the chair out from her desk and straddled it backwards.
"Hey, dad." She still looked at her homework.
"Hey, can I ask you a question?" he got to the point.
"That depends."
"Do you feel like you can come talk to be about…anything?"
The question caused her to shift her sitting position a little as she contemplated what she was going to say.
"Well, not everything." She looked at him, wondering what he was trying to get at. "You don't want to know everything. You couldn't handle knowing everything." She told him honestly.
Josh paused a moment, wondering just exactly what "everything" meant to his sixteen-year-old daughter. "The important things." he clarified. "Like friends, drugs…"
"For the most part, dad, yeah. I don't want to talk about sex with you though." She said that word a little too casually for his liking. Isn't she eight years old?
"Okay. I can understand that. But everything else?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I feel comfortable."
"What about Audrey? Do you think she can come to me with things?"
Katie let out a surprised and dismissive "psssssh" sound.
"Dad." She started, seriously. "We all know your relationship with Audrey is a complicated one."
"Yeah, I know." He felt like the child.
"She can come to you with some things, but I think she confides more with mom."
"I know." He admitted. She's always been closer to Donna.
"Does she tell you stuff that she doesn't tell mom?"
Katie grinned at the question. "Are you asking me to rat on my sister, dad?"
"No!" he said defensively, though he knew that's exactly what he was doing. He decided to admit it when he saw the look his daughter had on her face that so resembled the look Donna gave him when she knew he was lying. "Okay, yeah, a little bit. I just want to make sure she's not….you know."
"What?" she smiled, forcing him to tell her.
"Doing crazy, dangerous….stuff?"
"Dad, she has values, you know."
Josh let out a breath of relief, thankful to hear this.
"She may be more of a free spirit, but you gotta trust her. You have taught us some useful things, though they may be few and far between." She added in jest.
There were very few people Josh trusted more to tell the truth than Katie. They'd always been able to be honest with one another and he trusted her word fully.
"Thanks, baby." He got up and pushed the chair back in. Then he leaned over and kissed his daughter on the top of her head. "I love you."
"Love you too, daddy." She replied. He felt his heart melt.
Later that night, Donna was still in Audrey's room and Josh still decided to stay away. He sat in the living room reading the latest edition of Time with CNN on in the background. Katie had also joined him. She was curled up in the corner of the couch reading To Kill a Mockingbird for school and Josh sat on "The Chair" – the affectionate name for the 15-year-old recliner only Josh was allowed to sit on.
"Do you want me to turn the TV off?" Josh asked his daughter.
"No, I'm listening." She replied, keeping her eyes on the book in front of her.
"How can you be…" his voice trailed off.
"The Moss gene." She simply stated.
Josh smiled. Both girls had an amazing multitasking ability that he could only pretend to have. They got it from their mother, along with the ability to see right through him.
"What did they just say?" he quizzed her.
"The republicans have screwed up again. Big surprise."
Josh was proud that both girls identified themselves as democrats by the time they reached kindergarten. He had them trained so well. Donna had been slightly horrified and worried when Katie started asking her classmates what their party association was. No one knew what she was talking about. The twins could talk the political talk very early on and their father beamed with pride.
"Have you read this, dad?" she gestured with her book.
He looked over and saw the book title. "Yeah, in like, seventh grade." He said, matter-of-factly.
Katie dropped her arms to the couch, annoyed, and gave Josh a look.
"Well maybe you should fight harder for higher academic standards, Congressman. I just wanted to show you this passage. You probably don't remember since seventh grade was, what, seventy years ago?"
"Watch it, Kaitlyn Marie." He jokingly warned her. "Give me the damn book." He reached out his arm and signaled with his fingers to turn the novel over, still staring at CNN.
Katie got up and sat on the floor next to "The Chair" while Josh began to read aloud.
After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, "Scout, ready to read?" The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me.
"Something wrong, Scout?"
I told Atticus I didn't feel very well and didn't think I'd go to school any more if it was all right with him.
Atticus sat down in the swing and crossed his legs. His fingers wandered to his watchpocket; he said that was the only way he could think. He waited in amiable silence, and I sought to reinforce my position: "You never went to school and you do all right, so I'll just stay home too. You can teach me like Granddaddy taught you 'n' Uncle Jack."
"No I can't," said Atticus. "I have to make a living. Besides, they'd put me in jail if I kept you at home - dose of magnesia for you tonight and school tomorrow."
"I'm feeling alright, really."
"Thought so. Now what's the matter?"
Bit by bit, I told him the day's misfortunes. "-and she said you taught me all wrong, so we can't ever read and more, ever. Please don't send me back, please sir."
"Kind of like you and me in kindergarten, remember?" Katie commented.
Josh thought back and knew exactly what she was talking about.
"You were already reading at a third grade level and you hated school because you were so bored."
"I knew mom wouldn't let me stay home, so I tried to work on you. But you didn't let me either. Bastard."
"And look how awful you turned out."
Katie punched him playfully.
"Read the next part too." She told him.
Josh continued to read aloud. Katie never told him when to stop so he kept on reading. He was enjoying it and started to recall the characters and themes of the book. Soon, Katie managed to squeeze into the oversized chair with her father and she rested her head on his shoulder. About twenty minutes into the session, Donna finally emerged from Audrey's room. She winked at Josh to let him know everything with Audrey was okay. She took a moment to watch the two together and then went about doing various things around the house, leaving the pair to bond.
Audrey emerged a few minutes later from her room and walked to the kitchen. She heard her father's quiet, gentle voice reading a book aloud to her sister. Her mother had a long talk with her about school and pressure and dad. She'd always gotten along better with her mom, opposite her sister. But she still had a special adoration for her father. He was the man who played with them on the playground when none of the other dads did, who cooked horrible scrambled eggs and sausage but always with a certain silly pep, and who read stories to them as little girls with funny voices like no one else could.
She felt the urge to go join them. Slowly, Audrey walked over to where the two were sitting. She leaned on the back of "The Chair" and affectionately pet his curly hair.
He paused at her touch and looked up.
"Hey, pumpkin. You okay?"
"Yeah." She spoke quietly.
"Wanna join us?" Katie gave her an inviting smile. She was enjoying this rarity and wanted her sister to enjoy it too.
Audrey pouted a little.
"But there's no room."
"Oh nonsense. There's always room." He patted on the arm's chair. "Get over here."
"You mean I get to sit on the beloved 'Chair'?" she walked around. "Is this a special holiday in Josh Lyman Land?"
"Well, don't get too attached. It's very temperamental and doesn't like visitors."
"Right." She plopped herself down on the arm and swung her feet across her father's lap onto Katie's, who happily held them in her arms. Finally, she wrapped her arms around Josh's shoulders and rested her head on his, looking on to the book.
Josh had to pause a moment to take the scene in. His twin girls wrapped up altogether, intertwined with him, as he read a book to them. They hadn't done this since they were eight years old. Their relationship was a little more complicated now, but the essence was still there. A father and his two little girls enjoying a book together. How can it get any better than this?