And Now The World is Ours

Chapter Two: Riding On A Camel

Three things that cannot be hid long: love, pregnancy and riding on a camel.

Arab Proverb

Midterms are in two weeks, and we're rallying. We want to keep the House and win the Senate, and have a very good chance of doing both. There's a bunch of competitive and important races going on, and everyone's in power-campaign mode- everyone except me, that is. I'm having trouble focusing. Focusing on more than my two favorite races, anyway, the California 8th and 47th. Because guess who's running? Joey Lucas, and Will! Joey's basically got her race sown up- as if the population of the Bay Area wouldn't vote for a charming, female Democrat, even if she does need Kenny to communicate with most of her constituents, and Will is finally running and actually winning the campaign he should have run and won six years ago. Chuck Webb had to resign over your typical lobbyist-slash-sex scandal; his seat was up for grabs and good old Will's doing his best to grab it. He's polling at 48, and I'm actually flying down with the First Lady in two weeks to campaign for him, and Joey, which is why they're both here today. I'm meeting Joey sometime this morning, and then Will for lunch.

As I'm thinking about all this, I'm nibbling plain white toast and politely listening to Josh's early morning rant about- something. Or not listening, as the case may be.

"What on earth are you eating?" Josh, done ranting, looks up at me from a half-eaten bowl of Apple Jacks.

"I still feel a bit woozy." Woozy is an understatement. We came back from Germany almost a week ago, and still, most foods –anything fried, and most dairy- have me running to the bathroom. Dry toast and chamomile, that's my breakfast these days, no matter how upsetting it is.

"You should go see a doctor, there's no way this is normal," Josh tells me through a slurp of milk. Down, stomach, you don't have to eat it. Gulping town the rest of my tea, I hastily get up. "Where you going so fast?"

"Dressed, and away from your gross, gross cereal."

"Hey, you bought me this stuff, this was-"

"I bought you Life and Quaker Oats and other healthy things. This stuff? Not healthy! Anyway, I am getting dressed. What about you?"

"Yeah, I was going to go to work in these," he gestures at his T-shirt and boxers with a grin so smarmily charming I want to wipe it off his face in the way only I can.

"You're wearing that? For your meeting with Will?" Ten minutes later Josh, brushing his teeth and trying to simultaneously button his shirt, joins me in front of our bedroom mirror.

"What's wrong with it?" I glance at my navy blue satin blouse unsurely before turning towards him and buttoning his shirt for him.

"It's kind of…" he trails off, his eyes widening suggestively.

"Revealing?!" I laugh. "Josh!"

"It is! You look like-"

"Joshua Lyman, you are without a doubt the most ridiculous person I've ever met."

"Is that counting Janis The Star Trek Fan?"

"Not counting Janis."

"In that case, I'm okay." He kisses me, his mouth still full of toothpaste.

"Mmm."

"We should do this every morning."

"Maybe you should brush your teeth every morning."

"Donna? Joey's here to see you." Kerry sticks her head into my office.

"Joey?" I'm turning into a scatterbrain, it's crazy. For weeks now, I've been forgetting names, dates, meetings- exactly the kind of stuff I used to be so freakishly good at. "Oh, right." Joey Lucas is here! She walks in, with Kenny as usual. I ask Kerry for some coffee for them, and an onion bagel from the Mess for me. Somehow that's exactly what I want right now. An onion bagel, when I could barely deal with plain white toast this morning. What the hell is wrong with me? Joey and I talk strategy and scheduling for awhile- she understands that we have to spend more time in Will's district than hers, but cheers up when I show her the First Lady's schedule in San Francisco- basically nothing but campaign events. We talk some more as I happily gnaw on my onion bagel.

"Is that really that good?" She asks me incredulously.

"Not really," I admit, "but I just had this craving, it was so weird, even though I've been sick all week, throwing up and stuff, I really wanted to have an onion bagel."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"It's going to be strange and awkward and personal."

"Go ahead."

"Are your boobs bigger?"

What the hell? I stare at Kenny, who blushes and shrugs. "Did you get…?" He nods, gesturing at Joey with a what-do-I-know expression on his face.

"I said, are your boobs bigger?" Joey repeats, actually speaking this time. Then, signing to Kenny, who takes over again, "I told you it was an awkward question, I'm just asking because, with the food craving, and the throwing up, and you mentioned before you were forgetting things…" His voice trails away.

I am so confused. "Yes, but what does that have to with my boobs being… bigger?" I'm blushing now. Then I remember what Josh said about my blouse this morning, and when I glance down now, I realize it's straining quite a bit more than usual. "Oh my god." This is getting spooky. "How did you know that?" Was Joey Lucas staring at my boobs? Is she a lesbian? Is she in love with me? Does Kenny know?

She scribbles something down on the back of a speech draft, and hands it to me. Are you pregnant?

What? "What?" My mind has gone completely blank. What? Pregnant? Me? "No, I'm not," I say, and suddenly I feel my throat going tight. "I'm… oh, my god. Am I?"

"Donna?" I see the concern in Joey's eyes; she reaches out and takes my hand. "Are you really surprised?"

Surprised? I'm stunned. Stunned. There's no way, no way I could be… and then, with a sinking feeling, I remember that trip to Argentina, how I forgot my pill at home, how I went without for a few days and when we got back… Oh, god. And, hang on, the last time I had my period, that must have been at least six weeks ago, I remember asking Lou for a tampon, but it was still warm outside then… Oh, god. And then, even though I mainly just feel like I've been run over by a train, my heart gives a little flutter, and this feeling runs through me, this feeling of… I don't even know. Love? Hope? Happiness? It's a good feeling, I think. Yes, a good feeling, as the thought hits home, reverberates in my brain like the sound of bells from far away. I might be having a baby, we might be having a baby, with Josh's dimples and my eyes, and… and then panic surges through me. A baby? There's no way we're ready for a baby, we've only been a proper couple for not even two years, and the life we lead, here and there and everywhere and never out of the office before ten, there's no way, no way…

"What do I do now?" I ask Joey, trying and failing to keep the panic out of my voice. She raises her eyebrows at the look on my face and scribbles some more on the paper. It's going to be fine. I read. That might be too much to hope for right now. Take a pregnancy test. Go see your doctor. Talk to Josh. She underlines the word "fine" twice and smiles at me.

I can't do this. Thoughts are whirling in my head so quickly I can't keep them apart; I'm weightlessly gravitating somewhere between This isn't happening and I love you already.

Casting around for something to say, something normal, I ask, "How did you know?"

"My sisters just had their first and second, respectively, and my assistant's pregnant, too," Joey explains. "I'm surrounded by pregnant women. You get good at guessing after a while." Kenny smirks as he says this last part. I can't help but smile a little, too.

"Anyway," I say, going into office mode, because it's the only way I can deal with things right now. "Uh, are you okay with the schedule the way it is? We can move that last speech outside if you'd be more comfortable, get more people there…"

"It's fine," Joey signs, frowning. "Thank you so much. We should get going." Then she says, to me, "You'll be okay?"

"Yeah, of course." With a brave attempt at a smile, I get up and see them out. Joey gives me a quick hug; Kenny just beams at me. The door shuts behind them, and I weakly sink onto my couch.

Pregnant. Me.

It's like the room is slowly being flooded with the meaning of that word.

It's not like I haven't thought about it before, deep down. In my heart, I've known forever that it was Josh or no one, and somehow, somewhere in the distant future I guess that thought included a family. It's not like the image of Josh, my Josh, bouncing a curly-haired baby on his knees, has never come up. But not so soon. Not now, now that life has just fallen into place so neatly. Not now.

Except it seems like it's happening now, right now, and there's nothing I can do about it. Life has a funny way of screwing me, Josh and me, actually, of picking me up and swooping us into a completely new and terrifying situation, just when a comfortable status quo has been achieved. I guess it's payback for the years of status quo we had, and never did anything with. But a baby? That just makes everything else we've gone through, Roselyn and Gaza and elections and That Night, as I've taken to calling it, seem tiny and insignificant in comparison. Maybe that's the scariest part. I take a deep breath, get up, carefully stretch. Chuck the onion bagel in the trash, I have to eat healthy now, what is it that pregnant women always eat? Folic acid. I have no idea where to get those.

In a strange, otherworldly sort of blur, I grab my bag, a few of the folders of my desk, my coat. I leave my office, telling Kerry I want to run a few errands before meeting Will for lunch. I walk out of the East Wing, down H Street. I stop at CVS, and buy gum, toothpaste, shaving cream for Josh, shampoo for me, a bottle of water. And a pregnancy test. The cashier doesn't comment, not even when I make a point of cramming the bright blue box into the very bottom of the plastic bag, almost tearing it. I stuff the bag into my tote and hurry along to Bistro Bis, where I'm meeting Will. It feels like carrying a bomb, or at least a boulder, around with you.

I mercifully arrive at Bistro Bis a little early, which gives me time to adjust to the prevalent smell of food around the place and pacify my stomach, as I nibble some French bread and reread Mrs. Santos' schedule. Act normal, I tell myself. Just be calm and be yourself, the man's trying to win an election here.

"Hey!" Will's leaning over me, with his usual awkward, huge grin.

"Hi!" I get up and give him a hug. We're war buddies, the two of us. He was never Josh, and he knew it and so did I, but those months on the Russell campaign trail, trying to use our war chest to build the image of a man who might be worth electing, trying to shut up our conscience, and drinking cheap liquor, created a strange bond between us.

Will sits. "How've you been? How was the summit?"

"I think I'm pregnant." Shit. I wasn't going to tell him that.

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind," I say hastily. "How's your campaign going? 48, that's great-"

"Did you say you were pregnant?"

"Sssssh! I said might. I said I might be pregnant. Possibly. But can we not…"

"But that's such good news, that's really-" Seeing the expression on my face, he falters. "Should I just shut up and let you talk to me about Helen Santos?"

"You really, really should." And incredibly enough, he does. I'm kind of disappointed, a little more fuss would have been nice, but I prefer this. The longer I don't have to deal with this, the better. We have lunch- he has lunch, I have bread and chamomile, even though I really want a bacon cheeseburger, but that might not contain folic acid, so I don't risk it. We go over the schedule for next week, Will hands over his try at some of the First Lady's speeches –I'm going to have to get Ishmael to go over them later- and we discuss possible post-event spin. And just like that, we pay, and we're saying goodbyes.

"Donna?" Will bites his lip nervously and looks at me. "It's… great news, it really is. Even if you don't think so right now." I nod, sadly, and he continues. "I know it's scary as hell, but it's going to be fine. You're going to do fine." He opens his arms, and before I know what I'm doing, I dive into them. He smells comforting and clean, and whispers into my ear: "You love Josh, and he loves you, and you're both going to love this kid. And the rest, you'll figure out along the way. I promise."

"Thanks, Willie," I smile at him, feeling my throat constrict. "Really, just… thanks."

"You're welcome. I'll see you next week, right?"

I nod. "Good luck till then- give 'em hell, okay?"

"It's done. Bye."

I walk back to the office, dump the CVS bag in a corner and try very hard to forget about it. I rally my staff, hand Ishmael Will's drafts. I talk to Mrs. Santos; I talk to Amy in legislative liaison. By the time we can call it a night, it's actually night, and I'm so tired I don't even bother to call Margaret and see what Josh is up to, I just get a cab and go home.

The house is quiet and dark, and I'm so tired and so hungry, I completely forget about folic acid. I just pour myself a bowl of Josh's Apple Jacks (my stomach no longer protests) and crawl onto the couch, flicking on the TV and finding some old Friends reruns. I snuggle into our huge plaid, and slurp my cereal, choosing to ignore the fact that I've left that CVS bag in my office, and I feel my eyelids drop…

Then, suddenly, I wake up as a pair of remarkably strong arms is heaving me up. A definite scent of dry-cleaning and dirt and something else remarkably pleasant envelops me, and I crack open an eye and see Josh, and I start to say something, I try to tell him about today and Joey, and what might be happening, but he shakes his head and shushes me, and carries me upstairs, and helps me change and makes sure I'm tucked in and kisses me good-night. And before I fall asleep again, I think that Will was right. We love each other, and we'll figure out the rest along the way.