Warning: This chapter contains brief mentions of an abusive relationship. It is hinted at in the first section and described in more detail in the third section.


Donna

"So I watched the world tear us apart:
a stoic mind and a bleeding heart.
You never see my bleeding heart.

And your light's always shining on,
and I've been traveling oh so long,
I've been traveling oh so long."

–"Reminder" by Mumford and Sons

1.

Donna takes another sip of coffee and waits for Josh to start yelling.

They're lost again—somewhere upstate, among soybean fields and cows and rolling hills. It's all gotten very provincial. She's only known her boss six months, but Donna has already locked in on the ebb and flow of his moods and the pattern to all of his tics and the way the cogs in that very weird, very complicated mind of his grind together. Josh Lyman is the kind of guy who will cry over spilled milk but who wouldn't blink if you asked him to find a way to get it back into the carton. He's all about the big picture.

Which means that any second now, he's going to notice that they've passed the same paint-splattered barn for the third time in half an hour, and then he's going to see that the sun's almost down, and then he's going to realize they've been in this car for nearly three hours without a bathroom break, and then he's going to—

"DONNA!"

"I know where we are. I swear."

"No, you do not—oh, for fuck's sake. We're not ever going to make it to this damned hotel, are we?"

"What you don't know about me is that I have excellent driving karma," Donna says, setting down her thermos. "I always find the best parking spots. You can ask anyone."

"You have...driving karma." Josh inhales sharply. "I can't believe it's all going to end on some backcountry road next to a grown woman who believes in driving karma—"

"The energy you put into the universe comes back to you, Josh," Donna says, turning past an unsettlingly familiar farm. "Also, you're not going to die, you big baby."

"I won't even get to see Governor Bartlet win the election," Josh says, his head in his hands. "In fact, who's to say he will win, what with me being, you know, dead and stuff?"

"Josh, you are not—"

"All this beauty and ambition and youth, forever lost to the world. Wasted." Josh looks up at her, hair practically standing on end. He's doing that thing with the raised brows where his eyes go all wide and serious, but then he's fighting back a grin, and God, Donna needs to be concentrating on the road, not on her boss's dimples.

"You're supposed to be navigating," she reminds him, squinting at an upcoming sign. "This was your idea."

"Well," Josh says, lolling back in his seat, "I was tired of the bus."

"Yes, Josh. Everyone is excruciatingly aware that you were tired of the bus."

"This is the way to see America!" Josh protests, tapping the dashboard meaningfully. "Could anything be more patriotic, Donna? Just me, my assistant, the open road, and a little freedom."

"It will be slightly less patriotic if we miss the Governor's rally tomorrow morning." Donna finishes the rest of her coffee and flips on the headlights. The sun has officially set. "This is why Leo didn't want us to rent a car."

"Well, it was either this or..." Josh throws his hands in the air. "I dunno, I think Mandy was going to put me out of misery. Violently." Donna smirks.

"I think Toby would have thrown a party."

"Hell, I think Toby would have helped." Josh shifts, checks his pager for the thousandth time in an hour. "Do you think we're missing anything?"

"I think that we're missing bad food and warm beer and everybody yelling at each other about the speech."

"So...exactly nothing?"

"Exactly nothing," Donna agrees. "Once we find civilization, we'll get some bad food of our own."

Josh smiles at her again. He doesn't seem nearly as anxious about this as Donna had thought he would be.

"I'd rather have dinner with you, anyway," he says. "You're much smarter than Sam or Toby. Prettier, too."

"I'm sure your girlfriend would be thrilled to hear that," Donna says. Is she blushing? Why is she blushing?

"Ex-girlfriend, as it should happen," Josh says. "As of two days ago." Donna slams her foot on the brakes, nearly jerking through a stop sign.

"What?"

"Yeah," he says. "Why'd you really think I wanted off that bus?"

"Oh. Uh." Donna swallows and pulls into the intersection carefully, grateful to finally see a stoplight and florescent signs blinking up ahead. She's not going to look at Josh again, not until she can string a coherent thought together. "You did keep complaining about the seats."

"Mandy is just..." Josh gestures expansively. "She's so much, you know? All the time."

"She's her own person," Donna agrees, scanning around for a restaurant.

"Which is fine. Great, even," Josh says.

"But?"

"I don't know. I just was getting tired of every single conversation turning into the verbal equivalent of a street fight." Josh cranes his neck. "Hey, I think that's a diner? Right there, off to the left?"

They whip into the parking lot. The restaurant is a typical small town favorite, filled with sweet-faced waitresses, green vinyl, grumpy old white men in flannel, and laminated menus. Donna might as well be back in Wisconsin. She had vaguely expected Josh to sneer at a place like this, but he seems perfectly content when they're ushered into a booth near the window.

"I haven't been to a real diner since law school," he says, surveying his menu happily. "This is gonna be way better than hotel food."

"Are you kidding me?"

"What?"

"How are you not freaking out right now?" Donna demands, rushing to lower her voice. "We don't even really know where we are! You're probably not going to be able to go over the final draft with Toby until tomorrow. We could be miles and miles off track! We could have to stop for the night in a cornfield or something. Or, worse still, we might really miss the rally altogether."

"You'll get us there," Josh says, not even glancing up. "They have fried oysters! They have gravy fries and gyros and garbage plates and malted milkshakes, Donnatella." Donna blinks.

"Is this about Mandy?"

"Why does it have to be about Mandy?"

"I have never seen you this relaxed in the entire time I've known you. I have never seen you get excited about a milkshake"

"A malted milkshake, Donna! The best in all of New York state, according to the menu."

"I got us lost!"

It hangs there between them for a moment. Josh peers at her over the top of his menu, and Donna suddenly feels very young and stupid and small. It is, after all, her fault that they had gotten off at the wrong exit, and then her fault again when they went in the wrong direction for nearly sixty miles. Her fault that they'd been circling nowhere little towns for the better part of the day. Her fault that they aren't already there with the others, settling in for the night. Donna's just been so tired lately, ever since she came back. Ever since she broke-up with Carl. She hasn't slept a full night in...she can't even remember the last time. Maybe it was in Denver? Or San Clemente? Somewhere west.

She hasn't been too hungry, either. She hasn't been able to focus long enough to read a book all the way through in months, which used to be the only thing that she would look forward to after a long day. She hasn't wanted to do much of anything but work, and she especially hasn't wanted Josh to notice something is off with her. He had been good enough to take her back without even one jab at her taste in men (or lack thereof), had been understanding—sweet, even—about her bad ankle, and thus far, has trusted her with everything he needs. She hasn't let him down. Until today, that is.

If she could just concentrate...if she could just keep her mind on work—work, not Carl. Work. She feels pathetic enough as it is. She has to be better, has to be sharper, or Josh will stop remembering how good she is at note cards and start remembering that she's the flighty college dropout who went crawling back to a guy at a moment's notice, went from everything Josh had tried to give her to waiting tables again, all because Carl sent some dumb flowers and called her crying at two in the morning and said I need you, Donna; I can't do this without you and I want to be with you forever and I'll do anything if you come home and I'll be so different this time.

Of course he wasn't different. Of course he didn't really love her. Of course he was just scared and lonely and didn't know how to get through med school without her rent and moral support. Of course he'd stopped for a beer when his girlfriend called him, terrified, from the hospital. Of course, while Donna was leaving, he'd yelled at her that her boss didn't miss her and would show her the door the second she came back. You're giving up on me—on us—because I didn't rush straight to your bedside? You were fine, Donna! It was just a sprain. What do you fucking mean you deserve better? This is so like you. You think you're so special? You're a girl from Madison with a high school diploma who tricked some Washington hotshot into giving you a job. I'll tell you what else: you didn't get that job because he thought you were smart or qualified. If you want to know how you got it, take a look in the goddamn mirror. He just wanted to get in your pants the first time around. You think he's gonna be stupid enough to fall for it again? You're a waitress, Donna. You're not a political operative. You're nobody.

"Donna?"

Of course, Carl had just been an asshole. Of course he hadn't known anything about Josh or the campaign. Of course Donna knows that he was just angry and still drunk when she was throwing all of her shit back into her car. Of course, he was wrong, and probably wouldn't even remember half of what he'd said. Of course.

"Donna? Seriously, now I am going to freak out. Are you okay?" Josh waves a hand in front of her, and Donna snaps back to reality. Reality: she is sitting in a crappy diner with her boss, not getting screamed at again by Carl. Reality: she got them hopelessly lost. Reality: she needs to keep it the hell together.

"I'm sorry." Donna shakes her head. "God, I'm sorry. I'm fine. Were we ordering? What are you getting?"

"You just zoned out," Josh says. "You look—I mean, we should really get you some food." He glances around for a waitress until he catches the eye and attention of a smiley redhead. Her name is Ellen, according to the tag pinned to her apron.

"What can I get you, honey?" Ellen asks Josh, pen at the ready.

"It's gotta be the tuna melt," he says. "Macaroni and coleslaw for the sides. Could I please also have a vat of coffee and the largest chocolate malted milkshake you've got?"

"Sure thing. And for you, sweetheart?" The waitress is smiling at Donna expectantly now, like Donna has had time to look at a menu while she's been publicly unraveling.

"Just water for me," Donna says. Josh's eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline.

"Uh, no," he says, snatching her menu away from her. "She will not have just water. She will have...let's see, you like a good steak sandwich, right, Donna? Yeah, of course you do. And you like fries. So she'll have the steak sandwich with pepperjack cheese, light on the onions, and the fries extra crispy. She wants a chocolate shake, too, in the worst sort of way. This is a milkshake emergency, okay?"

"Josh!" Donna wants to melt underneath the table.

"She'll thank me later," Josh says, winking up at Ellen.

"He's a keeper," Ellen tells Donna, beaming down at them. "I'll put those orders in for you kids right away."

"See? I'm a keeper," Josh announces the second they're alone again. "Everyone says."

"I can't believe you know what my favorite sandwich is," Donna says, staring down at the table. She can't look at Josh right now. She's pretty sure her expression would say it all.

"You gotta know these things about your employees." Josh unwraps his silverware. "I have to keep you around somehow."

Very, very soon, Donna is going to completely break down in the middle of nowhere in front of her boss, a chirpy waitress, and a restaurant full of registered Republicans. She's losing her goddamn mind.

"Hey, Donna? I really am worried about you." Josh leans across the table, lays a hand on her arm. "I mean, I know I'm not the most laid-back kind of guy. I know I get...impatient. Loud. I'm not that easy to work with most of the time. But I don't want you to be scared of me. God, that's the last thing I want."

"What? I'm not scared of you."

"It just seems like you think that because we got lost—"

"Because I got us lost."

"Okay, sure, because you're a human being and you made a couple wrong turns—"

"We almost ended up back in Pennsylvania, Josh."

"All right, so it was kinda worse than that. But not by much." Josh runs a thumb reassuringly over her wrist. "It happens, is what I'm trying to say. You think I could have done any better? You know I can't read maps."

"Hence why you're a horrible navigator," Donna agrees, staring down at his hand. It's a nice hand, she thinks. A bit rougher than she'd expected. Where does he get so many calluses from?

"Exactly hence," Josh says. "But Donna, you do read maps, really well in fact, and you've never gotten turned around like this before. It was just a bad day. Did you think I was going to fire you?"

It's happening. It's happening, and she can't stop it.

"No," Donna says, but her voice is cracking right down the middle, and then she's crying for the first time since she left a drunken Carl in his townhouse's driveway, shouting incoherently after her car.

"Oh no," Josh mutters.

"I...I'm..." Donna hiccups and helplessly mops at her eyes with her napkin. "I'm just really..." Before she can finish, Josh is slipping into her side of the booth, he's got his arm around her, and she's burying her face into his shoulder. God, she's not this person. She's not a crier, and she especially never cries on people, and she fucking especially never cries on Josh. He's her boss. This is so inappropriate. If he wasn't going to fire her before, he definitely is now.

"So, here's what I think," Josh says quietly, his mouth nearly against her ear. "I think that you haven't gotten enough sleep lately. I think that you really need to eat some dinner. Also, I think that I'm going to drive us the rest of the way to the hotel."

"No, no," Donna says, jerking back from him. "No, you really don't need—this is my job, Josh. I'm going to do it. Honestly, I'm fine."

"Well, I'm sort of the one in charge here, and I say you're not fine," Josh says, leaning in some more. "Usually, people who are fine don't start sobbing over ordering dinner."

"I...I'm so sorry. This is just completely unprofessional, and I promise you, I'll never let it happen again—"

"Donna!" Josh is frowning, studying her with the kind of intensity he usually reserves for the campaign map. "Dammit, you're allowed to cry! You're allowed to make mistakes. I don't need or want you to be infallible. So...cut it out, you know?"

"What do you mean?" Donna asks, hiding her face in the napkin again.

"You told me once that I might find you valuable," Josh says. Donna can feel his breath against her neck, can smell old coffee and clean laundry and something spicy. She's never been so close to him before. Josh squeezes her shoulders, and then reaches across the table for his napkin. He presses it into her hand. "You can stop trying to convince me, Donna. I'm not going anywhere without you."

"I didn't get my degree. I quit with no notice back in March. I have no political experience." Donna draws a long breath. "And then I got you lost."

"You got me to bed before 4 AM last night. You pointed out that we weren't reaching fringe populations in Illinois, which made Leo and me reconsider how we approach minority voters. You replaced all of my blue markers before I even knew I was running out. You organized, like, five hundred pages worth of data into a manageable report in two hours and twenty minutes. You remembered Senator Harding's wife's name at the fundraiser and made me look charming and thoughtful enough that they wrote us a $15,000 check. You talked some kid's ear off in Boulder, convinced him the Governor was committed to relieving student loan debt, personally assured him that you'd help make it a priority, rattled off eight kinds of statistics I couldn't have come up with in the middle of a crowded bar, and wouldn't leave him alone until he promised you that we had his vote. You did all of this, Donna, without being asked. You did all of this, and somehow also found the time to learn to tie a Windsor knot." Ellen the waitress shows up with their milkshakes and Josh's vat of coffee. She does a good job of ignoring the fact that Donna's crying, shooting her a knowing look over the top of Josh's head.

"Food'll be right out," Ellen says, and then bustles off again.

"Anyway, Donnatella Moss," Josh says, after taking a sip of his shake, "I'd have to be pretty clueless not to find you valuable after all that. Wouldn't you say?"

Donna looks up at Josh, who takes his arm away from her shoulders and suddenly won't meet her eye. He's staring at the tall glass in front of him, worrying his straw. If Donna didn't know better, she'd say he was embarrassed; his ears are going red, and he seems more fidgety than usual.

She feels like she's only really seeing Josh now, as though he's come sharply into focus. He's been crazy and intense and left her breathless with his easy intelligence, which seems to either bolster or threaten to overwhelm him, depending on the day. He's been endearing, funny, annoying, and perpetually late. He's been loud and infuriating. He's been sort of quietly kind: hiring Donna when she gave him every reason not to, being so gracious when she quit ("Hey, I get it. If he's the guy, he's the guy. Life's short, you know?"), always convincing Leo that Donna has to come along to each new stop on the trail (even though funds are tight), buying her dinners whenever he needs her to stay up late with him, never treating her like she's somehow just his assistant (even though of course she is).

But he's never been like this. He's never been her friend.

They've both been toeing that awkward professional line, neither one of them quite willing to step over it. Donna is, after all, Josh's employee. She's even salaried, now; her hotel bills and meals are no longer coming directly out of her pathetic savings. The campaign covers all that. Even when she was working for nothing, Josh had always been very careful around her. He'd tease her and he'd whine at her and he'd laugh at her, but he'd never ask her anything personal. He knows about Carl ("Dr. Freeride"). He's seen her SAT scores and her college transcripts. He knows she was a waitress and that she mostly grew-up in Wisconsin. That's about it, though. Donna knows even less about Josh, apart from the fact that his father was a lawyer, and had passed away unexpectedly after a pulmonary embolism. Donna can still see Josh's face when she'd had to tell him—how quickly his expression melted from joy to shock, how he'd waved away her offer to drive him to the airport. She had wanted to hug him or something, but he'd been rushing to tell Leo, call a cab, throw his stuff in a bag. There hadn't been time, and they were still mostly strangers back then.

Donna knows that Josh is from Connecticut, since she had booked his ticket home that awful night. She also knows that he went to a couple of Ivy League schools, though he'd mentioned this offhandedly when she asked about his background, and he hadn't said where. He's got a law degree, though he never practiced, and had jumped straight into politics.

It seems strange to Donna that she's worked with Josh for half a year and she doesn't even know if he has brothers or sisters, doesn't know what his first job out of college was. She doesn't know if he likes to read or what kind of music he listens to or if he ever goes to temple. She doesn't know what he's going to do if they lose the election. She hadn't even known he and Mandy had finally broken-up, and Donna was riding on the same bus with them the day it happened.

Josh's arm brushes against Donna's as he reaches for the other milkshake. Her heart leaps to her throat and dammit, this is why. This is why there's a line. This is also maybe a tiny bit why, when she left Carl for the last time, she didn't think of going back to her parents' or to stay with her best friend Amanda for a few days. Donna had wanted to feel useful again, wanted to bury herself in work, wanted to prove to Carl and herself that she was capable and smart and could make it in politics—but then, there was also Josh. Josh, yelling about states-by-states and voting districts and getting out their message. Josh, trying to teach her about ad buys and how to figure out where they were going to go dark. Josh, pulling at his ridiculous hair. Josh, with that stupid dimply smile that always sends Donna's train of thought flying wildly off the rails. Josh, who she stares at when she's sure he's not paying attention, when he's swamped in numbers and policies, when he's arguing with Mandy, when he's scaring the interns, when he's falling asleep on the bus next to her with his head against the window and his shoulder slumped against hers. Josh, who is her boss.

Josh.

"You should drink your shake," Josh says, nudging her. "It's melting."

"Thank you," Donna blurts out, pulling the glass towards her. She's relieved to find that the tears have finally stopped. "Thank you for saying all of that just now, Josh. I just…that means quite a lot to me."

"Well, it's all true," Josh says gruffly, shrugging one shoulder. "I wouldn't say it if it weren't."

"I know," Donna says. The milkshake is really good—not too sweet, just the right amount of whipped cream. She'd believe it's the best in the state.

"Are you really okay?" Josh still isn't meeting her eye, but the concern in his voice is palpable.

"Yeah, of course," Donna says. "You were right. I haven't been sleeping well. I've been worrying a lot."

"Is it about that guy? The doctor?"

"Sort of," Donna admits. "But he isn't important anymore. This is what's important. I'm just trying to make sure I do my best so that you don't ever have a reason to regret hiring me back."

"I'll never regret that," Josh says, just a touch too quickly. He takes a long sip of his coffee.

"Not even if we miss that speech tomorrow?"

"We won't miss it," Josh says, turning to give her his full attention.

"But if we did?"

"There will be plenty of other speeches, Donna," he says. His eyes are warm and his ears are still a tiny bit red, just at the tips. Josh takes a breath, seems to be about to say something else, but then their food arrives. Donna tells him to go back to his own side of the booth, and then she's so hungry and so excited about her sandwich that she doesn't think about the way he was looking at her again until much later.

Instead, she steals some of his macaroni, and finally asks him about his family. His parents were married for almost 45 years. His mom is struggling somewhat on her own, but she has good friends to look in on her. There had been an older sister, but she passed away many years ago (Josh doesn't say how or when). Josh grew up in Westport but never felt like he quite fit in. He went to Harvard, where he fit in even less, and then on to Yale, which felt a little more like home. He's easily bored by most novels, but inhales memoirs and political biographies (of course he does). He likes Jewish food and Jewish holidays, but he only goes to temple when his mother's around to guilt him.

After his second enormous cup of coffee and a piece of cherry pie, Josh asks Donna about her family, laughs at funny stories about her older brothers, wants to know what it was like to grow up in the Midwest, what her favorite of her many majors at UW-Madison was (drama, actually, although she tells him it was polisci). They talk for two and a half hours, until the restaurant is about to close. Josh gets another cup of coffee to go, wrestles the keys away from Donna, and then insists she try to get some rest. Donna flatly refuses. She pulls all the maps Josh had crumpled up off the floor of the backseat, and then manages to figure out that they're only half an hour outside of a town called Canandaigua, which is where their hotel is supposed to be.

They get there at just after 10, Josh rattling off his predictions for how Governor Bartlet's education plan will go over in Ontario County. Donna listens and jots down notes, her feet on the dash. After they park, Donna wrangles the bags while Josh checks them in, and then, when they head off to their rooms, he drops her key in her hand and says, "See, I knew you'd get us here!"

Donna hugs him for the first time without thinking about whether she should. Josh wraps one arm around her with his usual awkward gracelessness, but then she lets her head rest on his shoulder, and he tilts his chin just so, pulls her in tight. Donna lets go sooner than she wants to, and then, before she can change her mind, she says good night and hurries into her room. She leans against the heavy door in the dark for just a moment, eyes closed, trying to catch her breath, trying to pretend that she's just lonely, trying to pretend that she hadn't seriously been thinking about kissing her boss thirty seconds ago. He was just being nice. You work for him. You can't want him, not that way. You can't do this. This has to be about your career. This can't be about Josh.

Josh.

Donna pushes away from the door and gets ready for bed. When she brushes her teeth, she thinks about the notes she'll need to have ready for the speech tomorrow. When she scrubs her face nearly raw, she thinks about the dress she'll have to try to de-wrinkle in time for the fundraiser tomorrow night. When she crawls under the scratchy sheets, she reminds herself to check why they're spending so much time in an area that almost 100% votes red, at least according to the report Josh had made her read back in Scranton.

When she's asleep, she dreams. She doesn't jolt awake in the middle of the night, sweaty and anxious, Carl's voice ringing in her ears, his whiskey breath hot on her face. She doesn't have to lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling until her wake-up call. Donna sleeps soundly, right until the phone rings at six. She feels rested and alert and more clear-headed than she has in weeks. Months. A year?

When she gets up to make coffee, she thinks about Josh. When she stumbles into the shower, she thinks about Josh. When she pulls on her favorite skirt, she thinks about Josh. Donna thinks about Josh until she sees him in the lobby, rumpled and sleepy and frowning, staring down at a copy of the speech. He's shaking his head. He runs one hand over his face and shouts something to Leo, his voice jumping higher than she's ever heard it go. Then he's ranting, and Leo is trying to talk him down, and Donna knows she should go over and make Josh take a breath, and then fix his tie for him and tell him it's going to be fine—Toby and Sam know what they're doing.

She waits, just for a minute, watching this crazy man wave his arms around and knock over his cup of coffee, listening to him insisting that Toby needs to learn there's more to New York than the city and there's no reason to bring up Manhattan and city taxes when they're in corn country, watching the way he shrugs off his suit jacket (now stained), still yelling all the while.

When Donna gets there, she calms Josh down in about five minutes, convinces Toby to tweak the language about New York City, tells Josh to get himself a new cup of coffee while Donna finds him a fresh jacket, hustles him out the door and into the car in enough time to follow the bus to the ampitheatre the Governor is speaking at, laughs as Josh tries to get their rental car to pick up any station but country, laughs even harder when he gives up and starts singing along with a heavy twang, watches the sun streaming in through the cracked windshield. It turns Josh's hair coppery.

When they pull up in the parking lot and Josh jumps out of the car, yelling that he has one last change to make and that he needs Donna just as soon as she parks, Donna knows. She knows when she finds him ten minutes later and helps him organize his thoughts to present to Toby, who looks like he's going to explode when they beg him to tack on one more point. She knows when she watches Josh watch Governor Bartlet bring a crowd of conservative farmers and blue-collar workers to their feet. She knows when they start chanting Bartlet! Bartlet! Bartlet! and Josh whoops, spins, pumps both of his arms above his head. She knows when Josh catches her around the waist and swings her up into the air, hollering about victory and 29 electoral votes and something else about corn.

Josh grabs her by the elbow, yelling that she has to come out on to the stage with everyone else to join the applause. As Donna lets him drag her forward into the rush of sunshine and the cheering crowd, she knows (beyond doubt, beyond reason, beyond hope, beyond professionalism, beyond everything): she is in very big trouble.


2.

She hadn't meant to stay.

It's just that Donna's tired, really, and she's been hauling boxes from the office over to Josh's apartment all day, and then she'd been trying to make sure he didn't throw himself into work right away, and then she'd decided to organize his medicine cabinet so that he won't get confused in the middle of the night and take a handful of something he shouldn't, and then Josh had just looked vaguely pathetic when she had talked about heading out, and she still can't get the image of him covered in blood out of her head, and how can Donna possibly be thinking about leaving him alone—really alone—for the first time since the shooting?

She's not just staying because of that, though. It's also that his mom had needed to finally get back home. She's a sweet woman, a well-meaning, smart, strong, and absolutely loving woman, but the shooting had stolen something from her. It had been clear to Donna, right from those first few days at the hospital, that Ruth Lyman was not going to be able to handle seeing her little boy like this for long. Josh's mother needs him healthy, cracking jokes, yelling at congressmen. She needs him lying about going to temple and grinning down at her boyishly and doing her taxes. After Joanie, after Josh's father—maybe Ruth can't handle another loss, even a near miss. At any rate, she had flown to Washington the second Leo had confirmed Josh was one of the shooting victims, and planted herself at Josh's bedside. Ruth had let Donna hold her hand through all of his follow-up procedures and the bad nights, the ones where Josh's breath came in bursts like gunshots, where he'd mumble incoherently about popcorn and Schubert, staring past them glassy-eyed as he swam in and out of consciousness.

When he was awake at long last, when he was complaining about being an invalid and begging to take meetings from his hospital bed, when he was whining for one of his extra extra extra well-done burgers, Ruth had firmly lectured Josh about taking better care of himself. She had unfolded herself from the quavering, mute woman Donna had met a week previously into the fast-talking, no nonsense meddler Josh had always described her to be. Ruth had practically poured matzo ball soup and Vitamin C down Josh's throat, and told her son that under no circumstances would he be eating anything fried while she was alive to watch him do it. Ruth had scoured his apartment, with Donna's help, and then had cooked and frozen enough food to keep Josh fed for a year. She'd spent three nights on a cot next to his bed at home, just in case Josh needed something in the middle of the night. And then, finally, Ruth had wilted, bought a plane ticket, and asked Donna to please look after her son. Ruth had seemed so humiliated, so exhausted, and Donna hadn't known how to ease any of that. She'd seen the way Ruth had stared at Josh while he was sleeping: like he was a ghost. Like he was already lost to her forever. Like her world was crumbling to ash again, for the third time in as many decades.

Donna had promised Ruth. She'd looked Josh's mother in the eye in the departure lane at National and said that she would see to it that Josh was taken care of. Ruth had been crying so hard, but she had barely made a sound. Donna hadn't known what to do except hug the poor woman and whisper that Josh was going to be all right, that he was so strong, so resilient. He was already doing so much better than anyone had believed possible.

"He needs someone," Ruth had hiccuped. "He needs someone so badly, Donna, and he doesn't want anyone to know. I wish that I..."

"He's got me," Donna had whispered.

Ruth had looked at her for a very long time, still stretched over from the passenger seat, her hands on Donna's shoulders. It had taken a TSA agent rapping on the car window to break the moment, and then Ruth had kissed Donna's cheek and murmured her thanks and goodbyes.

Donna takes a breath now, trying to shift into a more comfortable position on the cot next to Josh's bed. It's weird. It's weird, but it's necessary, at least for tonight. Maybe she could help him figure out an arrangement of some kind with a live-in nurse? Someone who would know what to do if anything went truly wrong in the middle of the night. Someone who could save his life. Someone...well, someone not Donna.

She's wearing an old Mets shirt of Josh's and a pair of his boxers, which is also weird, but right now, they seem to be beyond the bounds of professionalism. He'd insisted, anyway, telling her to take anything she wanted from his dresser, whatever she needed to be comfortable.

"It's really nice of you to stay," he'd told her after the decision had been made. "But you can go home! I'll be, you know. Fine."

"Just for tonight, since it's so late," Donna had said. "You'd be doing me a favor. I hate taking the metro after nine."

"I'd call you a cab."

"I hate taking cabs after nine."

"Donna."

"Josh."

There'd been a long pause, Josh staring intently at the ceiling, Donna staring intently at Josh, and then he'd finally muttered, "Thanks."

And that had been that.

Josh falls asleep a lot these days, sometimes nodding off in the middle of a conversation. It's a combination of the heavy pain meds and sheer exhaustion. Even the simplest tasks make him break a sweat; he can shuffle around with more of a swagger than he could at the hospital, but not without some assistance, and not without basically collapsing whenever he gets where he's going. Tonight, he had dozed off on the couch during the movie Donna had put on to distract him from the pain—he'd been complaining about the ache in his lungs all night. It had taken almost half an hour to get him into bed. Thankfully (for Josh's pride, at least), he'd been too medicated to protest, had leaned on her heavily and let her pull his Yale sweatshirt over his head and tuck him under a soft knitted blanket like he was about five years old.

Donna presses her face into her pillow and listens to Josh's labored breathing. Will it ever go away, this sharp, consuming, gnawing worry? Is she ever going to be able to be around Josh again without wanting to cling to him, to keep him near her, to keep him safe and alive and in one piece? Donna hasn't been able to sleep or think since Rosslyn. All she's wanted is to keep doing things: tangible, important things, things that will help Josh recover, things that will make her useful. She has to be useful, because she wasn't there.

She wasn't there when Josh was bleeding alone on the sidewalk, a bullet lodged somewhere in his chest. She wasn't there to hold his head or scream for help or dive in front of the damn thing herself. She wasn't there to tell him not to be afraid, when he surely thought he was going to die. She wasn't there to tell him—

Well. Maybe it's a good thing she hadn't been there, in the end.

"Donna!" Josh's voice is so loud it nearly sends Donna toppling on to the floor. He sounds unnaturally strained, even for him.

"Josh? Josh, are you okay?" Donna sits, panic bubbling steadily up from the pit of her stomach. Oh, God. Please, no.

"Donna. Donna!"

She launches herself off of the cot and kneels down next to him, tentatively reaching for his arm. His skin feels damp and clammy; his t-shirt is nearly soaked through.

"Josh? What is it? I can call 911, I can get you...I don't know, but I'll get it, whatever you need, whatever you want. Tell me what's wrong."

"Donna," Josh moans, and it's only now that she realizes he's not conscious. He's trembling under her touch, his breath more uneven than before. His eyes are screwed tightly shut.

"Josh," Donna murmurs, leaning in close to his ear, "it's a dream. Josh, I'm right here. It's me, Donna. I'm here. I'm here. You're okay. I'm here."

"No." Josh thrashes, gasping, his voice breaking. "God, no. No no no no no—"

"Josh! Wake up!"

"I didn't mean to, didn't mean...no no no no no—"

"You're dreaming. I'm here, Josh. Wake up!"

Josh's eyes flicker open at last, but he still can't see Donna. He can't see anything.

"There's too much smoke," Josh says. Donna strokes his cheek—a reflex, almost—and Josh is crying, his eyes shiny and wild in the dark. He turns his face into her palm, and then he grabs her wrist so hard it almost hurts, covering her hand with his own. Donna's breath hitches.

"There's no smoke," she says, running her thumb along the line of his jaw.

"The sirens—"

"No sirens, Josh. It's so quiet, can't you hear? There's just the clock in the living room and the air conditioning. There's just me, right here, talking to you. It's Donna, Josh. You're at home, you're in bed. You're safe."

"No no no no—"

There's nothing else left. Donna gently pulls her hand away from his face, bites her lip, and slips into bed behind him. It's weird and it's wrong and she shouldn't, but she has to. She has to. His voice is so—he's so—he—

He needs someone.

"Josh," she whispers, wrapping an arm around him underneath the covers. He's still shaking. "Josh, are you here? You've just been dreaming. It's all been a very bad dream, but you're going to be okay now. I'm right here. Do you feel me next to you? I'm here."

"Donna?" Josh asks, voice barely more than a rasp. "Are you...what...?"

"You're okay," Donna says again, tightening her grip on his arm. "Just go to sleep. You have to sleep."

"Don't leave me," he chokes out. "God, Donna. Don't leave me." She knows that Josh is still half-asleep, terrified, high on Tramadol and Norco. She has to remember that, whatever happens next.

"I'll never leave you," she tells him, shifting even closer.

Suddenly, Josh is turning to face her—painfully twisting underneath her arm, and then he's reaching for her blindly, tangling his fingers in her hair, drawing Donna in until her forehead brushes his.

Her heart races and she should pull back, should be scrambling away from him and out of his bed. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. He doesn't know it's you. He doesn't even know he's awake. He thinks he's nine years old again in a burning house. He thinks he's getting shot on the steps at Rosslyn. He's not Josh, and if he were Josh, he would never have let you get in bed with him. He would never want this.

"Donna," Josh says yet again, sliding his hand down the back of her neck. Donna closes her eyes and tries to focus on inhaling, exhaling. Wrong, wrong, wrong. "I shouldn't be at this meeting."

"You're not at a meeting. You're at home. You're in bed."

"Donna, I have to tell you."

"You can tell me in the morning."

He's pulling her in even further, until she's got her chin in the crook of his neck. His hand trails down to her shoulder, then across her back.

"Is it really you?" Josh asks. His tears are dripping into her hair, and Donna is drowning in them.

"It's really me."

"I'm alive?"

"You're alive."

"And you're here."

"So are you."

"That's good," Josh mumbles, his arm slackening around her. "You're good." He takes a long, shuddering breath. Donna pulls away a little to check on him. His eyes are drooping shut, and then, mercifully, he's asleep again.

Donna traces her fingers across Josh's forehead, blinking furiously against tears of her own. He's alive, he's alive, he's alive.

He's alive. He's going to go back to work in two or three weeks. He's going to get better. He's alive.

He's alive. He's going to shout at her again from his office. He's going to order her around and fall asleep at his desk. He's alive.

He's alive. Donna didn't lose him. He's here, he's warm, he's got a pulse. He smells like bar soap and sweat and Josh. He's alive.

Donna should get back to her cot. Donna should know better.

Instead, she rests against her boss, close enough to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest. She wraps her arm more firmly around him, just in case he needs her again. It doesn't matter that she's stupidly, unavoidably in love with him, and it doesn't matter that he can't know, and it doesn't matter that Donna spends most of her time trying to keep these inconvenient feelings safely filed away. It doesn't even matter what this might look like to anyone else. This isn't about Donna or her heart. It isn't about HR violations or lines that shouldn't be crossed.

This is too important for that.

Donna will stay here for a few more hours, just to be sure Josh sleeps through the night, just to be sure he's all right, and then she'll sneak away before he wakes up. He doesn't ever have to know. This never happened. Donna falls asleep with her head on Josh's pillow and a plan.

She wakes up with the sun in her eyes and Josh staring at her.

For a second, Donna just squints at him. She's still halfway on his pillow, but she isn't touching him anymore, thank God. Josh looks scruffy and confused, his hair matted down on one side, his forehead wrinkled. Donna wants to reach over and smooth her hand against his stubbly cheek again, just one more time. Instead, she jerks backwards to the other side of the bed, taking half of the blankets with her.

"So," Josh says.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep here." Donna knows she must sound ridiculous. She's still waking up, still trying to process the situation."I'm sorry. I know that this is awkward."

"Freudian, even," Josh agrees. She's never seen him look quite so uncomfortable before. "Why...?"

"You were upset," Donna says quietly, dropping her gaze down to Josh's comforter and the knitted blanket. It looks handmade. There's a loose stitch right near the border, and she picks at it, trying to twist it back into place.

"Upset," Josh repeats. His voice has more gravel to it than usual, like he's smoked half a pack of Marlbolo Reds or something."Upset how?"

"It's not important," Donna says, but Josh grabs her hand, gripping it so hard that she has to look up at him again.

"What did I do?" Josh asks, his jaw clenched, his eyes dark and wide. Donna can see every worry line creased into his face, every shadow. Sometimes, she forgets he's nearly 40. He always seems so young.

"You were just crying out in your sleep," Donna says. "It was the medicine, you know? You didn't know where you were. I tried to wake you up, but even then...you thought..." Josh's hand is nearly crushing hers now.

"What?"

"You thought you were somewhere else," she says, studying his expression. It's stony, unreadable. "You were very scared. I just lay down next to you to try to...um, calm you down. I hugged you and told you where you were, and then you fell asleep again. That's all it was, Josh."

"I'm sorry about that," Josh says. He finally lets go of Donna and scrubs his hand over his face, through his hair. "Fuck."

"There's nothing to be sorry about."

"This isn't in your job description, Donna," he says, shifting back against his headboard. "You didn't sign on for...this. It's a little above your paygrade."

"I'm not here as your employee, Josh," Donna snaps. The annoyance in her voice even startles her. "I'm here as your friend, all right? You're not just a paycheck to me. Do you honestly think I would do this for anyone I work for? Do you think I would be in Leo's bed? Toby's? Sam's?"

"Donna—"

"You're my friend and I care about you and I'm here to help you," Donna says, wrapping the blanket around her and sitting up. "It can be as easy and uncomplicated as that, Josh. This is only strange if we make it strange. Now, I'm going to have some coffee, and you're going to have some tea, and then we're going to watch bad TV until you annoy me into letting you go through the fair trade bill. And you're going to keep your pager off until at least noon."

Josh is smiling at her now, his eyes soft.

"Okay," he says. "But why do I get stuck with tea?"

"Absolutely no caffeine. You know what the doctor said."

"You're a cruel woman."

"I've been told."

Donna finds Josh's Yale sweatshirt on the floor and pulls it on, then heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

"Hey, Donna?" Josh's voice stops her at the door. Donna turns, and he's propped up against his pillows, still grinning at her the way he sometimes does when he's drunk or tired or trying to get her to bring him a donut. It's her favorite of all Josh's smiles. It's usually just for her. "Thanks. I'm pretty lucky to know you."

Donna smiles back at him, leaning against the door. When she looks at Josh, who's disheveled and sleepy and in need of a shave and so wonderfully imperfectly alive, Donna sees him handing her his badge in the Manchester office. She sees Josh in New Hampshire on election night after the win, how he'd just beamed at her through the balloons and confetti and champagne, how he'd hugged her and whispered, "You're gonna work at the White House, Donnatella Moss," how he'd guided her to the dance floor and spun her into the dizzy mass of people, and then pulled her back to him again. She sees Josh waking up in the hospital the first time the doctors let her in to his room, the way he'd looked up at her and said her name and asked if she, Donna (who had not just been shot and had open heart surgery), was okay.

"I'm the lucky one," Donna says, and means it.


3.

Donna's sure the knocking will go away if she keeps ignoring it hard enough.

She's been in bed pretty much since Josh told her to do absolutely nothing, in that hard, frantic voice. Donna had walked out of his office and gone home without saying another word to anyone, all the while trying not to panic or throw-up (or both). Somehow, she'd made it to the metro, and then to her stop, and then to her apartment. As soon as she was inside, Donna had taken her landline off the hook, turned off her cell phone and her pager, climbed under her covers (still fully clothed), and tried to forget how badly she'd just fucked everything up.

It had been an awful idea to have a diary in the first place. A worse idea to write in it freely without bothering to censor any of her feelings. A worse idea still to leave it in plain sight on her nightstand, where anyone could see. Where Cliff had seen.

And then she'd lied about it. The question ("Do you keep a diary?") had caught her off guard, and so she'd answered too quickly: no. She writes a lot of things, but nothing about the President, nothing about the administration. The committee wouldn't find anything in there to support a case against President Bartlet. All they'd get would be a novel's worth of reasons to have Donna fired, to smear Josh's name across the papers, to pull even more focus from the campaign. Everyone would know. Probably everyone would think that Josh had slept with her, or had at least encouraged her feelings to his own advantage. She knows what it looks like, the way people whisper behind their backs. Her friends have always defended her, but how could they continue to if they ever read all the things she'd written about him? Donna would have to leave Washington, leave politics, leave Josh (who would probably be too disgusted to talk to her again, anyway). All of this because Donna had needed an outlet—something, anything—and she'd always loved writing. All of this because she'd distracted herself with Cliff Calley. All of this because of a man. Again.

The knocking isn't stopping. Whoever it is has gotten into the building without using the buzzer.

A terrible thought occurs to her: what if Cliff had gone to the police? Is that something he could do? Donna had lied under oath, after all, and she'd been rude and uncooperative when he confronted her. Cliff had seemed nice about it, too. Why hadn't she listened to him? God, had she forced his hand? Is she going to jail? Will it look like she's been resisting arrest because she let the cops pound on her door for ten minutes?

Donna bolts out of bed. When she throws the front door open, it's not the police. It's not Cliff.

It's Josh, who heaves a sigh of relief as soon as he sees her.

"Are you okay?" he demands, pushing past her and into the apartment. "I was getting worried."

"No, I'm not okay!" Donna says, her voice far too high. "I thought you were the police." Josh shakes his head, balling his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"I've been trying to call you for over an hour," he says. "Didn't I tell you? Didn't I say—do absolutely nothing?"

"I thought that's what I was doing!" Donna protests, trying to steady herself against the counter. "I didn't know if I should stay at the office, and I wasn't thinking—"

"That's obvious." Josh's voice rises dangerously. "Dammit, Donna. Why did you lie to them?"

"Why are you here?" Donna's trying not to sink to the ground. She's trying not to look at him. This might be one of the worst moments of her life—not worse than that time with Carl, with the glass and the screaming, but it's right up there.

"Are you going to listen to me this time? Are you going to do whatever I say?"

"Yes."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? Because if you do something this stupid again, I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do!"

"I'm sorry."

"I know you're sorry; I don't care about sorry! I care about why you lied and I care about whether or not you've imagined, for one second, what the repercussions of that lie could be, and I care about how I'm ever going to be able to trust you not to do something like this ever again. So you need to convince me, Donna. You need to pull out all the fucking stops!"

"Would you please stop yelling at me?"

"Look at me, goddammit! This is your career we're talking about. This is your life! If this goes wrong, if this doesn't play how I'm praying it will, then one day, the police will be at your door, and I won't be able to protect you from that, do you understand? I'll have to watch! I'll have to—hey. Hey, Donna? Donna, take a breath. Donna?"

She's on the ground, her back against the kitchen island, and it's setting in: the raw panic, the hyperventilation, the tingling numbness creeping up from her fingertips to her elbows. It always starts like this.

Josh's face is suddenly right in front of her, and his hand is on her arm, and he's saying something to her, but she can't follow. She tries to speak, tries to tell him that she's fine, that this will pass, but the air has been wrung out of her lungs, and all of her words are gone with it.

Josh is grabbing her hands, turning them over, and then saying something—something about trying to count to ten. One two three. He squeezes her hands. Four five six. He's pushing her hair out of her face. Seven eight nine. He's talking again, his voice so much gentler. Ten.

She counts to ten with him five more times, until she gets her wind back, until she can shakily accept a glass of water.

"Do you have pills I can get you?" Josh asks. Donna shakes her head. "Does this happen a lot?" Donna shrugs. "For how long?"

"Since I was nineteen," Donna manages to whisper. She focuses on her water, and then takes a long sip.

"I'm so sorry," Josh says, sitting down next to her again. "I didn't know, Donna. I didn't mean to trigger anything. This is just serious."

"I know. You don't need to apologize."

"Sure I do. I didn't mean to come over here and shout at you, anyway." Josh bumps his shoulder against hers. "I came here to tell you I have a plan, a pretty good one. At least, I hope it is."

"Better than your secret plan to fight inflation?"

"Wouldn't anything be?" Josh smirks at her, and Donna starts to feel a little more grounded in reality.

"What kind of plan?" she asks, eyeing him warily.

"A plan to get you out of this," Josh says, nodding like he has to reassure himself, too. "To get us out of this. Cliff Calley seems like a decent guy. It was dangerous for him to talk to you in the first place. I think he's going to work with us."

"What do I have to do?"

"I already called him and told him I was going to let him read your diary and decide for himself if anything's material," Josh says. "We're going to meet him in an hour."

Donna stares at Josh, struggles to keep breathing normally.

"The whole thing?" she asks.

"Yeah, the whole thing." Josh frowns at her. "I promise I'm not going to yell again, but are you sure there's nothing about the President in there? You didn't, I dunno, overhear or see something you didn't tell me about?"

"I never write about the President," Donna says, taking another sip of water. "How can you be sure he won't give it to the committee?"

"It doesn't work like that. What he agreed to is illegal—just taking the meeting could get him disbarred or worse. Besides, I was hoping that you might have some collateral."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought maybe you wrote about him. About your...dates." Josh looks away. "Is he in there?"

"Yeah," Donna finally says. "Two entries."

"Good," Josh says flatly. "I'll take those, so we'll be the only ones who have them. That should be enough."

"Fine." Donna sets down the glass, careful not to let it slip. She imagines the pieces of it splintering, jaggedly, across her palm.

"Can I read it first?" Josh is drumming the floor with his fingers now, his hand hovering near Donna's.

"The stuff about Cliff?"

"The whole diary. I want to understand what we're dealing with before he does."

"No. You can't." Donna gets to her feet.

"Donna—"

"You have to believe me, Josh. There's nothing in there about the administration or the President. It's all...personal. I need it to stay that way."

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be that guy, but what the hell for?" Josh is on his feet now, too, tilting his head at her. "It's just me, Donna. I'm not going to, you know, judge you or something."

"You can't read it." She turns, bracing herself on the counter again. "Please don't ask me again."

"Okay," Josh says.

"Thank you."

"You've convinced me. But why weren't you just honest about it at the deposition? I know it's embarrassing, the idea of strangers going through your innermost thoughts, but if you weren't protecting the President...wouldn't it have been better to just let them have it? They couldn't use anything they found in it that's not directly linked to the investigation. Would it really be so bad?"

Donna pauses, considering. In some ways, it would be so much easier to just tell him, if only so he'd let it go, so he'd never ask her again. She could fudge it, sort of...she could tell Josh that she'd had a crush on him a few years ago and had written about it, that she had been embarrassed and worried it might get either or both of them in trouble. Would Josh buy that, though? Would he tease her about it, or get awkward, or call her stupid again?

Or worse, would he do something about it that they'd both be obligated to regret?

"Would it really be so bad?" Josh repeats. He leans against the counter beside her. "I just don't understand what could make you—"

"It could be bad for you," Donna says at last, shutting her eyes.

"What?"

"Dammit, Josh. I, um. I wrote about that time, at your apartment after the shooting. When I had to sleep in your bed? I was so worried when I wrote it; I said a lot of things about you and how much I care about you and how I was so glad you were out of the hospital. I talked about how, um, distressed you seemed? Maybe that's bad, too. I also mentioned the incident last Christmas, in a later entry—I didn't even remember that until just now. But Josh, the point is I wrote that I slept in your bed, wearing your clothes, and even though both of us know that it was nothing, that it was completely platonic, I thought other people might...I mean, you know what everyone says about us, you have to know. If I've heard it, you've heard it. I thought there might be backlash, some trashy headlines about the Deputy Chief of Staff and his assistant, something that could hurt your career, or possibly interfere with the campaign, make it look like the President's senior counsel is...is..."

Donna falters, trying to find the right words, the right way. Josh's jaw is the definition of dropped. In any other situation, Donna wouldn't be able to leave him alone about it. "You know what I'm trying to say. Josh, I know it was stupid to write about. I see that now. This has been...well, humiliating is the right word, I guess. All of this. I just want it to be over. So, if you can let this piece of it go...and I know that's asking a lot...but if you please can let this go, I think I'll be able to look you in the eye again someday. Of course, I'll do whatever you say. Cliff can read it. You can keep the pages about him. When this is all over, I'll run it through the shredder or something."

"You were concerned about my career?" Josh is staring at Donna like she's completely lost her mind.

"Of course," she says. "I know it was dumb."

"It wasn't dumb, Donna," Josh says softly. "It was...I don't know what to say. I had no idea you would ever...that you were so worried that night."

"Of course I was worried!" Donna smiles, hoping he accepts it, hoping he doesn't keep pressing the issue. "It was a scary time."

"Yeah. It was."

Josh is standing too close to her. She can feel his arm against hers, knows that if she looked up at him right now, they'd be nearly nose to nose.

"Should I go get it?" Donna asks. She leaves before he can respond. When she retrieves the stupid thing and brings it back to the kitchen, Josh has moved to the table, has his head propped in his hands and his knee jiggling furiously. He starts when she sets the diary in front of him.

"All right," he says, picking it up as though it might catch on fire. "This is the only one?"

"I'm not Virginia Woolf," she mutters, and Josh snorts.

"Yeah, yeah. Where's Calley?"

"October 4th and 5th." Donna sits down next to Josh and holds out her hand. "Do you want me to...?"

"Tear 'em out," he says, passing it back to her. Donna finds the pages quickly—they're almost at the end—and does as she's asked.

"You can read them if you want," she says, sliding them over to Josh. "There's nothing explicit."

He opens his mouth but seems to think better of it, exhaling roughly instead. Josh picks up the entries (five pages in all), and Donna watches him read about the first meeting—how cute and funny Cliff was even when Donna had been so late, but how she couldn't see him again—and then, how she'd slept with Cliff, how guilty she'd felt about it, how she wondered if Josh would be angry, how Cliff had been kind and sweeter than the last guy, but that it would never change the fact that he was a Republican who was investigating the White House. Josh would hate what she was doing, Donna knew that, and she knew it had been a mistake to get together with Cliff again; she wouldn't see him a third time. She'd just been lonely and it had been so long since anyone was really genuine with her. There'd been an allure there, too. It was forbidden. Things are always more tempting when you know you can't have them.

Josh finishes reading, a muscle working in his jaw, and then he folds the pages up and puts them in the inner pocket of his jacket, along with the diary.

"Let's go." He stalks out of her apartment without waiting for Donna to put on her coat.

ooo

Later, sitting silently on a bench beside Josh, Donna stares out across the park and wonders what Cliff's reading about right now. He has to be past Josh's PTSD diagnosis. Truth be told, all of the entries have blurred together in Donna's mind into one convoluted mass. She rarely rereads what she's written. The point is to put all of her feelings and confusion into something external and tangible, something she can throw at a wall or shove under her pillow. Something she can destroy, if necessary.

She writes about so many of the same things. Honestly, it's probably boring Cliff to tears at this point. Josh did this. Josh said that. What am I doing? Will this ever end? Why him? Why him? Why him?

Donna closes her eyes and tries to focus on counting to ten again.

One.

Josh in his office late at night, tie off, shirt unbuttoned, looking at me over a stack of paperwork. Not saying anything. Not laughing. Not flirting, even. Just running his eyes over my face, my hair, my legs. Always when I'm working, always when he thinks I won't notice. But I do. I can't not.

Two, three, four.

Maybe in five more years. If we can both stand it. If Josh feels even a tenth of what I do. If it's more than just unresolved sexual tension. If I can't cut the unbearable want of him out of my heart. If I can't just let him go the way I absolutely have to. Maybe in five years, I can tell him.

Five, six, seven.

He's arrogant and pigheaded and impossible. He never asks about my weekend. He talks too much, always cuts people off, never gives anyone else a chance to get a word in. He can be funny one minute and cuttingly derisive the next, like someone pulls a lever in that stupid Fullbright brain and his humanity gets temporarily shut off. He always has to be right, will bully you into admitting you were wrong just so that he can gloat and jeer. He always forgets a clean shirt and has to send me out to get one for him. He doesn't read any of the books I lend him. He never uses the goddamn intercom. He can't be bothered to say please when he shouts for his files or his backpack or my notes.

And what infuriates me the most is this: when he grins at me or does one lovely thing or starts ranting about idealism and honor, none of that matters to me at all.

Eight, nine.

Josh talks to me like I'm his equal. He argues with me like he really wants to change my mind. If he apologizes, he actually means it. He went to two of the finest universities in the country and today he told me that I'm smarter than half the people he graduated with.

It shouldn't ache this way.

Ten.

The flowers are beautiful and Josh is an idiot. Sometimes, I want to be honest about Carl. More honest than I was today, when I finally told Josh about the car accident. I want Josh to understand, fully, what it was like for me before I left: Carl, drowning in booze, shouting at me until the early hours of the morning because I'd traded my night shift for a day shift. Carl, stressed beyond reason by his residency, throwing things in the middle of the night. Carl, who only hit me once, but made it really count. Carl, soaked in vodka, telling me to get out of his house after the diner laid me off. Carl, who could be so sweet and funny and gentle, who would sing to me and bring me used books and make chocolate chip pancakes. Carl, who would do all of those things sober, and call me terrible names after his sixth drink. Carl, who I somehow loved for five years and three months. Carl, who stopped for a beer with the guys on his way to the hospital. Carl, who told me I was nobody when I said I deserved better. Carl, who smashed a tumbler of Jack Daniels on the kitchen wall while I covered my face and screamed until my voice broke. I picked shards of glass out of my hair for nearly an hour afterwards while whiskey dried on my scalp, on my neck, on my favorite blouse. I took the hottest shower of my life that night and still wasn't clean enough. The blouse went in the trash. Then, I packed my things for the last time, told Carl to go fuck himself, and got in the car. Carl kept yelling, but I wasn't listening anymore.

It isn't that Josh gave me the strength to leave for good. I know I did that all myself. But if he could just understand how far I've come and the life I've made for myself here, Josh would never doubt that this job, this work, is the best thing that's ever happened to me. He'd give me flowers in February.

If Josh knew about all of that—really knew—I don't know what he would do with it. I'm not sure I want to find out. He might stop thinking I could carry the world for him. He might stop thinking I could carry anything at all.

"Hey." Josh taps Donna's knee. "Looks like he's done."

Donna's eyes fly open, and sure enough, Cliff is on his way back to them, the diary in his hand. A wave of nausea crashes over her.

"It's gonna be fine," Josh tells her again. Donna nods and starts counting to ten, one more time.

"Hi," Cliff says. He's right beside the bench now. Josh stands abruptly, moving in front of Donna as though he's throwing himself in the path of a guided missile.

"So?" Josh demands.

"There's nothing in this that's relevant," Cliff says. He leans around Josh's shoulder, raising his eyebrows pointedly. "Donna. Can I talk to you in private for just a minute?"

"Absolutely not," Josh says before Donna can even think to respond. "Whatever you have to say to her can be said in front of me."

"You're not her lawyer, Josh," Cliff says. "I also think I've been more than generous here. This isn't about the investigation. It's personal."

"Personal." Josh's laugh sounds more like a growl than anything. "Right." Donna stands up, too, lays a hand on his forearm.

"It's all right," Donna says. Josh looks at her, brow furrowed, but finally shrugs.

"It's up to you. Just remember that you don't have to tell him anything you don't want to, okay?"

"For Christ's sake," Cliff mutters. Josh glares at him, and then turns back to Donna.

"I'll go get us some coffee from that place across the street. Be back in five minutes." He walks away even faster than usual, head ducked low. Donna wishes she could follow him.

"Well," Cliff says. Donna grinds her nails into her palm and forces herself to look him directly in the eye.

"Well."

Cliff smiles at Donna in a sad sort of way, his eyes locked on to hers, and then hands her back her diary.

"I understand why you didn't want this to be subpoenaed," he says.

"I'm glad you do."

"Donna." Cliff takes a step closer to her, lowering his voice. "I want you to know that I will never discuss what I read tonight with anyone. This will never appear in a tabloid. This will never be used against Josh for political gain. It will not fuel the Beltway gossip mill."

"Thank you." Donna closes her eyes again, just for a moment.

"I also want you to know that while the situation you're in is delicate, you can make a relationship with him work. Five years is an awfully long time to wait. There are ways around—"

"Please." Donna holds up a hand, shakes her head. "Please, can you not...? This is hard enough."

"Okay." He bends forward to hug her, and Donna lets him.

"You've been very kind, Cliff. I don't want you to think I don't appreciate the risk you took tonight."

"I'm so sorry about all of this. For everything." He plants a quick kiss on her cheek before stepping back. "Tell Josh not to worry, all right? Go home and get some rest. The hard part is almost over."

Donna watches Cliff Calley disappear into the night, and then sits back down to keep waiting for her boss. She can't help but wonder if the easy part will ever come.


4.

It's nearly 1:30 AM, but C.J. uncorks another bottle of wine anyway.

"He was such a handsome man, you know?" C.J. says, splashing more chardonnay into Donna's half-full glass. "In that very classic, very precise way. That smile."

"It was a stunner," Donna agrees.

"He knew it, too. He used to flash it at me and pour on the charm anytime he had to break bad news or try to convince me to be less than truthful with the press. Like I was a woman so easily swayed!"

"Weren't you?"

"Much to my dismay," C.J. says with a sigh. "I never let him think he was winning me over for a second, though."

Donna giggles, snuggling more comfortably under the soft throw on C.J.'s couch. She's in her favorite grungy sweatpants and her gigantic, faded Packers t-shirt. She can sleep past 5 AM tomorrow. She's lounging in a cozy apartment instead of another generic, fluorescent motel room. After everything—the campaign, and the election, and Josh, and Leo's death—it feels good to be able to sit with an old friend and drink a little too much. It feels good to remember Leo, to reflect on what a beautiful, complex man he had been, to celebrate him. The grief has been so unrelenting these past few days. To finally be able to think of Leo's smile, to be able to laugh with C.J. about his churlishness and his snappy suits and how old school handsome he was...it's more comforting than any funeral or wake.

"Thank you so much for letting me stay here," Donna says, taking a big sip of wine. "I've really missed this."

"God, me too." C.J. stretches languidly, sticking her feet under the blanket next to Donna's. "I mean, Danny was disappointed, but this—" C.J. claps a hand over her mouth. "Oh, shit."

"What do you mean Danny was disappointed?" Donna kicks at her lightly, and C.J. yelps. "Don't tell me—"

"Too much damn wine," C.J. says, setting her glass down so hard it almost topples over. "I'm trusted with state secrets; you'd think I could keep my big mouth shut about Danny Concannon and his erstwhile plan to seduce me."

"Oh my God!" Donna squeals, unable to help herself. Hey, she's had a little wine, too. "C.J.! When did this happen?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I suppose it's been in the works for seven years and it's just, you know, about time I stopped finding excuses not to enjoy it." C.J. smiles almost shyly down at her hands, twisting the bracelet around her wrist.

"That's wonderful. Beyond wonderful. I'm so happy for you two," Donna says. "Why didn't you just tell me you had plans tonight? I could have made other arrangements!"

"It would have been awkward to explain right then. I'd had slightly less booze." C.J. reaches for her wine again and drains the rest of the glass. "This is why they don't let me drink in the Sit Room."

"C.J., really. Danny must hate me."

"He'll survive," C.J. mutters, snorting. "And besides, was I supposed to just leave you out on the street? Where would you have gone?"

"Well." Donna bites her lip. She honestly hadn't been planning on bringing this up with anyone, not until she had figured out what, exactly, "this" was going to be. It seems too messy, too complicated, to try to explain. But C.J. clearly understands about complicated.

"Well what?"

"I could have stayed with Josh," Donna says into her wine glass.

"What, on his lumpy couch?" C.J. asks, rolling her eyes. "My guest bed is much more—wait. Wait just one goddamn minute, Donnatella. Are you...are you saying...?"

"Maybe." Donna smiles, the way she's been doing every time she thinks about Josh in his hotel room, his shirt all undone, his hands in her hair, his mouth everywhere at once. It's almost Pavlovian at this point.

Now C.J. is the one who squeals. She basically throws her wine glass down again so that she can yank Donna into a hug.

"I should be furious with you for keeping this from me, but as I'm not currently in a position to talk, I'll just say that I'm thrilled."

"Thank you." Donna can't stop smiling.

C.J. grabs for the bottle of wine.

"Now tell me everything."

ooo

"Donna, this is...this is just, wow. Wow."

"I know."

"When?"

"Well, remember that day I said that we'd had an odd moment?"

"He'd kissed you?"

"Yes!"

"I can't believe you played it off so coolly. I really thought he'd just, I don't know, gazed at you a little more longingly than usual."

"I didn't know if he would ever do it again."

"I always thought that if he started kissing you, he'd never be able to stop."

"C.J.!"

"And clearly, I was right. Tell me: is the sex as good as I think it is?"

"C.J.!"

"That's an interesting shade of crimson you're turning, there, Sandra Dee."

"You really have had too much wine."

"I think I've had just enough. In vino veritas, or something."

"Or something, all right."

"So why didn't you stay with him tonight? He didn't offer?"

"He did. But only after I'd already asked you."

"Donna! Why didn't you just go?"

"Then I would have had to explain—"

"Donna! Do you mean to tell me we both could have been getting laid tonight?"

"And yet, here we are."

"We are the biggest pair of idiots. We're an affront to the sisterhood."

"What sisterhood?"

"I don't know, come to think. It just seems like there's a sisterhood out there, judging us harshly."

"Maybe more wine will help."

"Help what?"

"I don't know, actually. It just seems like a good idea."

"You're not wrong there."

ooo

"Donna?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you just plan to stay at Josh's place all along?"

"Because I didn't know if he'd want me to."

"What? Of course he'd want you to. How could he not?"

"It's Josh, C.J. I was afraid if I asked to stay over, he'd think I was trying to move in with him."

"Oh, come on."

"I really think this might just be sex to him. That's what he said, when I told him I was staying with you—'So, sex in a hotel room is okay, but sex in my apartment isn't?' Or something like that."

"You think this is just sex?"

"Maybe."

"..."

"..."

"Donna, you are an exceptionally bright young woman."

"Thank you?"

"I mean, the work you did for Josh alone—not to mention on the Russell and Santos campaigns—was thoroughly impressive. I've been very proud."

"C.J...?"

"I wanted to get that part out of the way quickly, because you're not going to like what I've got to say next."

"Um—"

"No offense, but when it comes to Josh Lyman, you are an absolute dumbass."

ooo

"Oh, come on. I didn't mean it like that."

"I really think you did."

"I'm not saying Josh isn't also a dumbass. He's worse than you are."

"I can't have this conversation with you again."

"What do you mean, 'again?'"

"..."

"Donna. Are you upset with me right now?"

"No."

"Really? Because you're doing a stellar impression of someone who's upset with me."

"It's just that whenever I think of what you said to me that one night, the night the West Wing crashed, just before I went to Gaza...well, I think of that as the moment I realized Josh was never going to love me the way I love him."

"..."

"So I don't want to talk about it again. I know how pathetic I've seemed in the past, but—"

"Pathetic?"

"Yes. I know. I know that I kept myself in a low-paying, thankless job for seven years because of a man, okay? I get it. I know what that must look like to you, C.J. You would never have done something like that."

"Donna—"

"I really thought what I did for him mattered, you know? And I don't regret it, exactly, not really. I'm grateful, and I know I couldn't be where I am today if I hadn't done that job, and learned to do it well. But you were right; I didn't stay because it was the White House, and I didn't stay to serve the President. I turned down opportunities and didn't look for promotions because...you know, because of Josh. Because I was in love with him. Because he took a chance on me when I really needed someone to believe I was worth taking a chance on. Because he was so smart, C.J., so breathtakingly smart, and funny, and because he argued with me and never let me win; I had to earn it. Because he respected me enough to be wrong sometimes. Because he said I was invaluable. Because of his eyes and his stupid hair and the way his smile could about level me if he caught me off guard. Because he taught me everything I know about politics and about what it means to serve this country. So I let that—all of that—cloud my judgment, and I'd hoped I wasn't quite so transparent. Yes, I wanted more, I knew I could do more, but it would mean leaving Josh, and I wasn't ready for that. He just seemed more important, for so long, for too long. And then you said...well. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all."

"..."

"At any rate, I'm being more careful now. I'm trying not to plan my entire existence around him again. And he never knows what he wants, especially not when it comes to women. I've had plenty of time to watch over the past eight years, and I'll tell you, I'm not sure he's ever wanted me. Not really. I hoped that once we were out of the White House, maybe...but I don't know, now. I'm afraid to know. I'm afraid that he'll never want more from me than sex, and I can't fucking bear it, C.J."

"Donna."

"Don't look at me like that."

"Donna. I have never, not for one moment, thought of you as pathetic."

"It's okay."

"It's not okay. I made you feel small. I made you feel like your work was unimportant."

"No, you didn't. I know you would never intend for me to take it that way. It was just that, on that night, in that moment, I could see myself reflected back in the way you were pitying me. I didn't like what I found."

"God, Donna. I'm so sorry."

"You shouldn't be. You were right, in the end."

"I wasn't saying that being an assistant was anything to be ashamed of, and I certainly wasn't implying that Josh Lyman didn't value or desperately need you in order to function. You can't know, Donna, how much he needed you."

"I'm sure he thought he did."

"You don't honestly believe he kept you in that position because he didn't think you could do better."

"Why else—?"

"Donna, you were given the largest, most extensive workload of any assistant in the administration. In fact, you weren't so much an assistant as, well, Josh's deputy."

"Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff."

"You're laughing, but there's no punchline here."

"C.J., you told me I should be doing anything that didn't have to do with Josh Lyman."

"And I stand by that. He was never going to let you go, don't you see? It wasn't that he didn't want you to succeed. It was that he was too blinded by his feelings for you—"

"C.J."

"No, you have to let me finish. I can't stand thinking that you're holding yourself back from him because I planted this, this idea in your head that Josh wanted you filing his position papers and bringing him coffee for the rest of your life."

"I almost never brought him coffee."

"Whatever. Whatever, Donna. Listen to me: Josh has been in love with you—"

"Please don't say that."

"—in love with you since...I don't know, maybe since the day he hired you. He probably didn't even figure it out himself until that business with Jack Reese—"

"C.J., I can't listen to this. I can't—"

"Life is too fucking short. It's too short to play this game with him anymore. I know he hurt you. I know you wanted more, career-wise, and you needed him to notice. But he couldn't see that! The man was up to his ears in crises and stress and his own neuroses and he didn't see that you wanted more than what he could give, because he thought he was giving you everything. You were his right hand. I'm not entirely sure he thought he could get by without you right there, where you'd always been. It was stupid of him, but that's Josh. He was just getting through it one day at a time. He wasn't sleeping. He was positively mired in guilt about sending you to Gaza. He was blindly in love with you and couldn't do a damn thing about it—couldn't risk your reputation, or his, or the administration's, or put you in a position where you might feel pressured into sleeping with him. He just...he didn't see."

"How do you know he was in love with me?"

"Oh, Donna."

"No, how can you be sure? Did he tell you? Did he ever...?"

"Of course not. It's Josh. That's not his style."

"So how—?"

"The way he looked at you."

"Well, we were attracted to each other. That wasn't exactly a secret. We just tried to ignore it."

"I'm not sure you understand. I'd catch him sometimes, especially in the early days, when he wasn't so good at hiding it. You'd be busy, wrapped up in a conversation with someone, alphabetizing files or looking up phone numbers, and he'd lean in the doorway of his office and stare at you like you were the answer to every question he'd ever had. He didn't even realize he was doing it half the time. I would have to say his name at least three times to get his attention."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. It got to the point where Toby had a talk with him."

"What?"

"Yeah, it didn't go over well because Toby's an idiot, too, and he waited until they were drunk. Josh was a little more careful after that, though. Less sending of flowers and sabotaging of your dates. And of course, I had to be very clear with him right from the beginning about the ramifications of a relationship with his assistant, the kind of attention that would get. I told him, just after we took office, that he had to watch himself with you. He didn't like that very much, either. I suggested transferring you if he wanted to pursue a relationship, but he just waved me off, kept saying that you'd worked too hard and he would never interfere with your career, that he would never be that kind of guy. That you deserved better."

"..."

"Donna, I think that it takes an unusual kind of person to work for the President of the United States. Look at our personal lives. Look at me, look how long it took me to do whatever this is with Danny. I can't begin to guess what's going to happen next. Other people, they figure these things out with spectacular ease. But you, and me, and Josh, and Leo, and...and Toby...we all learned to sacrifice what we wanted, and maybe what we even needed, for something much greater. We had to. I'm proud of us all for that. I can't help but wonder, though, what the next eight years will look like, and I can't help but be reminded, especially after Leo, that our days on this earth are ephemeral. There's never enough time, not nearly enough. Why waste even one more minute being afraid?"

"What if he's not ready?"

"Then he's not ready. But you can't know that unless you talk to him, Donna. You can't know that unless you tell him what you want. It's Josh. You're going to have to spell it out for him. It's part of his boyish appeal."

"I've just gotten so used to the not-telling, you know? I'm not sure there's ever been a time when I wasn't trying to hide from him, at least a little."

"Well, it's time to stop, now. What do you want?"

"Him."

"But?"

"But I need him to try harder. I need to know that he can sacrifice his work, sometimes, for me. I need him to know he loves me, and I need him to tell me. I need him not to be afraid anymore, either. I need him to get all of this sooner rather than later, because I can't do this for another eight years. I can't handle him running himself into the ground until there's nothing left and then calling me up for sex to unwind. I can't know what he tastes like and not have him, not have all of him. It'd hurt too much, the almost having him. It would be worse than never having him at all. I can't do it. I won't."

"Then tell him that, mi amor. Just tell him."

ooo

When C.J. drifts off some time around 3:00, the throw yanked up nearly to her chin, Donna stumbles to the kitchen with the empty bottle and the two glasses. She's drunk, really and truly drunk, and the only thing she wants to do is find Josh and crawl into his lap. She wants to cling to him, to melt into him. She doesn't want to think about losing him. She doesn't want to think about what happens next, beyond the way they fit together, beyond the staggering newness of it all.

Donna turns on the sink and runs the glasses under hot water. C.J. had been right about time. There isn't much of it left before Josh is the White House Chief of Staff and Donna is—God help her—possibly his employee again. That can't happen. Won't happen. Her career can't be about Josh. And Josh's career can't be an excuse to put off figuring out what he wants from her.

The water splashes over Donna's hands, and she thinks about snowballs crashing against her window on a freezing January night four years ago, about the way Josh had pulled her into his lap in the taxi and had maybe realized he was in love with her. She thinks about how she'd been ready to pine for Jack and wallow in her own shame, but one look at Josh in a tux, bellowing at her in the cold, had blown that all to hell. And then, later, after they finished up work and a bottle of champagne with the others, Josh had taken her home. She'd let him in for coffee while Josh had lectured her at length about taking the fall for Jack and brushed against her on purpose more than once. He hadn't been tipsy. He was pretending to be, because he always got handsy after a couple of drinks and Donna always let him get away with it. So clever of him. He had probably thought he was convincing, slurring his words the perfect amount, but Donna knew. His eyes were too bright; his gaze was too heavy. When he'd touched her, running his hand down her arm, squeezing her knee, his grip didn't tremble. She had let him sleep on her couch anyway, and he'd been gone in the morning when she'd woken up. Donna had sat in the kitchen in a shaft of dusty sunshine, staring at the dirty coffee cups from the night before, wondering if he'd really been there at all.

The water's going cold, but Donna doesn't mind. She lets it keep flowing over her hands for a long while, watching the way it spills through her fingers before she can catch it, over and over and over again.


5.

"Do you need to get that?" Mrs. Santos smiles patiently, raising her eyebrows at Donna's buzzing cell phone.

Donna winces, fumbling with the buttons to reject Josh's call yet again. Can't he take a hint?

"No, Mrs. Santos. I'm so sorry. Let me put it on silent."

"There's no need! It could be important."

"It's Josh. If it were important, he'd leave a message," Donna says, frowning down at the phone. "He knows I'm meeting with you, and I can't think why—" The cell lights up again, vibrating wildly on the coffee table. Mrs. Santos laughs.

"I haven't known Josh Lyman for as long as you have, Donna, but the one thing I'm definitely sure of is that he doesn't like to be kept waiting. You can take the call. Technically, he's still your boss. For now."

"For now," Donna agrees, "but not for much longer. Thank you, Mrs. Santos. I'll just step out and deal with this, and then we can get back to our conversation."

"No rush. I need to check in on the kids, anyway."

The call has already gone through to voicemail by the time Donna gets into the hallway, but before she can hit speed dial, Josh calls for the fifth time.

"Josh? Is something wrong?"

"I have a very important question for you, Miss Moss." Josh's voice sounds...Donna squints, trying to pinpoint the adjective. Playful? Cheery? That can't possibly be right.

"Seriously, are you okay? You know I'm meeting with Mrs. Santos to talk more about the C.o.S. offer."

"It's a question of a time-sensitive nature," Josh says, but he doesn't sound harried or choked. He sounds like he's smiling.

"Time-sensitive, huh?" Donna asks, biting back a grin. "What's so urgent?"

"It's a matter of national security," Josh whispers conspiratorially. When was the last time he'd been anything other than anxious or grumpy or wound-up? When was the last time he'd seemed this much like his old self? Donna's stomach jumps hopefully.

"With you, almost everything is."

"Donnatella, my time-sensitive, very important question for you is this: Kauai or Oahu?"

Donna sucks in a breath.

"What?"

"You heard me. Kauai, the northernmost, oldest island in the chain, graced with vibrant, natural beauty, flourishing with romantic escapades and outdoor adventures? Oh, and something about a Jurassic Park waterfall? Whatever the hell that means." Donna can hear Josh clacking away on a keyboard. "Orrrrr...Oahu, home of the great state's capital, full to bursting with artistic and cultural wonders? And surfing lessons. And—well, that's less romantic, but certainly historically relevant—Pearl Harbor."

"Joshua Lyman."

"Yes?"

"Are you asking me to go to Hawaii with you?"

"You're too smart for me. I think that's the thing I find most attractive about you."

"Are you, with all of your mental faculties present and accounted for, actually asking me to go to Hawaii with you?"

"I'm not asking," Josh says, "I'm begging. I'm on my knees. You just can't tell because of, y'know, being somewhere else. I'd like to fix that. Immediately, in fact."

"Josh! What...when do you want to go?"

"It all depends on your answer to my very important question. The clock's ticking!"

"Kauai. Of course Kauai. Always Kauai."

More clacking.

"Done. How fast can you pack?"

"Is this really happening?"

"I have two tickets to Kauai for a flight leaving at 6:55 from National tonight, and one of them has your name on it. I can't make you come with me, but it's really not worth going without you. Nothing's worth anything without you."

Donna can't remember her heart ever being this full.

"How many bikinis should I bring?" she asks. Josh groans into the receiver.

"All of 'em. Every last one in the District. I'll pay for as many extra checked bags as it takes."

"I'll see what I can do about that. How long should I tell my future employer I'll be on vacation?"

"Exactly one week. And if she gives you any guff, don't worry. I've got some pull with her husband."

"Because you're such a handsome and powerful man."

"It's intimidating, I know. You've got less than an hour and a half to recon all those bikinis. You better move."

"Keep your pants on."

"Only if you say please."

"Okay, you lunatic. I'm hanging up now."

"I've already got my bag. Just have to finish up two things at the office, then I'm on my way. I'll have Otto drop your ticket by the apartment and put you in a car. And I'll meet you on the plane."

"That sounds perfect."

"Donna?"

"Yeah?"

Josh pauses, and then says, in a soft, raspy tone she's never heard him use before: "You're the best thing that ever happened to me. You always have been."

Donna presses the phone as close to her ear as she can and slumps against the wall.

"Josh, if you surprise me any more in the next thirty seconds, they're going to have to scrape me off the floor and I'll never make it to the damn airport."

"We can't have that," Josh says. "I'll see you at 6:55. Hurry."

"I'm going."

"I'm waiting."

As soon as Donna finds her balance again, she practically runs.

ooo

Josh has been asleep for almost four hours, his head propped against the window, his mouth hanging slightly open. Not for the first time, Donna smiles at him over the top of her paperback and reaches over to run her fingers through his hair. It's a relief he's finally conked out, admittedly after a valiant effort to watch the in-flight movie. It had taken ten minutes of Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFayden arguing in period costumes to put him under. Maybe he'll even sleep through the rest of the flight, at this rate. God knows he needs it.

Josh seems to be embracing the vacation. He had ordered a tequila sunrise as soon as the flight attendants had brought the drink cart around, declaring himself officially off the clock. He'd meant it, too. There was no work in his backpack. He didn't want to talk about the President-Elect or the transition or any of the next steps. He even claimed to not have his Blackberry—Donna's still pretty sure that's some kind of elaborate joke.

"It's my deal with Sam," Josh had explained. "His opinion was quite clear. After the way I screamed at Otto...I think I have to agree. I need to unwind. I don't like the person I'm turning into."

"You're just exhausted," Donna had reassured him, lacing her fingers through his on the tray table. "Did you apologize to Otto?"

"Yeah, of course. I apologized to everyone. They were all cool about it, especially after I gave them some cash for the Hawk and Dove tonight. I told Otto I'd think about other positions for him...told him we'd talk once I had my head on straight. I hope he doesn't completely despise me."

"Nobody despises you, Josh."

"I don't know, Donna. I realize I'm not Leo, but I have to be better than this. He would never forgive me for speaking to a staffer like that."

"Of course he would forgive you. You haven't been sleeping, and your mentor just passed away. You clinched a win in one of the closest races in our country's history, and you haven't taken a day off in over a year. You made a mistake; you said you were sorry. Now it's time to let yourself off the hook, dim the lights in that ridiculous brain of yours for a minute, and rest."

Josh had shut his eyes, squeezed her hand.

"Do I really look as terrible as everyone keeps saying?"

"You look like a guy who's been working twenty-hour days," she'd said, squeezing his hand right back. "Nothing a little sun and rum and sleep can't cure."

But she isn't exactly sure of that now, she thinks, setting her book down to regard Josh more carefully. He looks so much older than he had even a few months ago: the lines on his forehead more defined, the hollows in his cheeks more pronounced. He's lost more weight. His weariness is bone-deep at this point, as much a part of him as anything else. How much has this all cost him? How much left does he have to lose?

"Hey." Josh blinks at her sleepily, reaching out to rub her knee. "Time is it?" Donna glances at her watch.

"2 AM in D.C., 9 PM in Hawaii."

"There are really five hours left?" Josh yawns, sitting up more fully. "You should get some rest, too. You've had a long day."

"You know I don't sleep well on planes," she says, but he ignores her, pushing the armrest between their seats up, looping his arm around her, and then pulling her in sideways against his chest.

"Just close your eyes for a minute," he murmurs, brushing her hair away from her neck. "I've got you."

And it shouldn't work (nothing ever does), but the steady thump of Josh heart and the way he leans his head down on top of hers and the hum of the plane make Donna's eyes feel so heavy, she closes them. Just for a minute.

She doesn't wake up until the pilot announces they're preparing their descent into Lihue Airport, where the temperature is 75 degrees even after midnight, and the weather tomorrow will be perfect. Mahalo.

Josh kisses Donna with one hand caught in her hair, and when the couple across the aisle asks if they're on their honeymoon, he just grins over at them and says, "Nah, it's our first date." They crack up while Donna blushes and tries to explain, but Josh pulls her in closer and goes right back to kissing her until the plane skids to a landing in Kauai.

ooo

"This is too much!"

"It really isn't."

"Josh, I know you can't afford this."

"I really can."

"Would you stop that? I'm trying to be angry with you."

"Stop what?"

"The dimples. Put them away."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did you see that lobby? The marble, the spiral staircases, all the open air walkways—I can't even imagine what it will look like in the day. And I can hear the ocean! Do you think it's close?"

"I'd say so."

"Josh. Josh, Josh, Josh, Joshua."

"That's me."

"You cannot afford this."

"I put a little aside for a trip like this, Donna. This will put a small dent in my rainy day fund, enough to dissuade me from my inevitable midlife crisis."

"Don't you want a red hot Camaro or something?"

"I'm more of a Maserati guy myself."

"Ooh, look. There's a balcony."

"I should hope so. If this place is going to bankrupt me, there better be a damn balcony."

"Oh, shut up, Moneybags. I always suspected you were holding out on me."

"C'mere."

"In a minute! This bathroom is incredible. The shower has jets on the walls! And this tub is basically a tiny swimming pool."

"Donna, it's 3 AM. Come to bed. This will all be here in the morning."

"It's 8 in Washington! Plus, we both got more consecutive hours of sleep on the plane than we've had in two years."

"Yeah, I didn't say, 'Let's get some shut-eye.' I'll repeat: come to bed. Preferably wearing one of the many bikinis you promised me."

"Josh! Look at the soaps! They're shaped like little sea turtles."

"Or wearing nothing at all. That'd work for me, too. I'm not picky."

"These robes are maybe the softest things I've ever felt in my life. You've got to try one on!"

"Donna."

"Yes?"

"Thanks for coming with me."

"It's been a huge inconvenience so far, let me tell you. It's not all turtle soap and velvet robes."

"I'm pretty sure these things are not made of velvet."

"That does sound like an impractical fabric for a bathrobe, doesn't it? I wonder what type of—"

"Okay, that's it."

"..."

"..."

"You can't just grab me whenever you want to—mmph—"

"..."

"..."

"Donna?"

"Hmm?"

"Please come to bed?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely..."

ooo

Donna stands on the balcony while the sun comes up, wrapped in one of the robes. The light is spreading over the water and the sand below, turning everything to molten gold. The green mountains just beyond the bay rise up into the brightening sky like sentinels, craggy and timeless and more stunning than Donna could ever have imagined. The air is thick, earthy and warm, and the breeze off the ocean sweeps through the trees, lifting her hair. There's no sound at all but the rush of the tide and the faint rustle of palm fronds. She bends forward against the railing, breathes in the scent of salt and bougainvillea. And coffee.

"Morning." Josh sets a couple of mugs down on the little mosaic table sandwiched in the corner, then comes to stand beside her. His arm snakes around her waist, and Donna leans into him, her head against his bare shoulder.

"Morning," she whispers, unable to tear her gaze away from the sea and the too-white sand and the lush unrealness of it all. She had always thought Hawaii would be wonderful, but she'd had no idea it would be like this. It's one of the only places she's ever been that actually outshines the postcards, and she hasn't even left her hotel room. "Have you ever seen anything more heart-stoppingly beautiful in your entire life?"

"Yes," Josh says hoarsely, his grip tightening around her waist. When Donna turns to grin at him, he's staring at her as if he can't quite believe she's real, as if she's the ocean and the sunshine and gravity itself. As if he's loved her quite as painfully and helplessly as she's always loved him. As if he's never going to stop.

Everything else fades. The coffee grows cold, forgotten on the sandy balcony. The day stretches on, balmy and mild, and the tide goes in and out and in again.

Donna gets out of bed for the second time when the afternoon is half gone and takes a long, hot shower. Josh orders room service and two bottles of wine, and they sit together back on the balcony, talking and laughing and planning how they'll use the six days they have left here. They make it down to the beach just before the sun sets and walk until they've almost lost sight of the hotel, until they're nearly alone behind a little grove of palm trees. Josh holds her hand and watches the sun sink down, and Donna takes him in: his unbuttoned, wrinkled shirt; his pants, rolled up above his ankles; his hair, curling down over his collar; his face, open and relaxed and missing the usual grim fatigue. He's at once so different from the man she fell for all those years ago and so very much the same. He's steadier, now, a little more jaded, a little sharper. His laugh doesn't come quite so easily. There's a hard edge that was never there before Rosslyn, and that's only gotten harder as the years have crept past. But his smile hasn't changed, and he still reaches for her before anyone else, still tells a dirty joke just to see if she'll giggle, still raises his eyebrows at her and smirks because he knows it will make her do anything he wants.

That's really all Donna needs.

On the walk back, Josh starts to bring up the timeline Donna had set (three weeks, four days left). He starts to say something about not thinking and not being very good at this sort of thing, something about not having a life and not wanting to screw it all up, but Donna stops him, kisses him hard, her hands on his chest.

"Let's not," she says, when they break apart. "Let's just be here, okay? We can deal with everything else later." He nods wordlessly, kissing her again, and then leads her back to their room and peels off her sundress as soon as the door swings shut. A crescent moon has just risen in the clear, dark sky, and the wind is swirling through the open balcony door. The sound of the sea is the only thing Donna can hear apart from Josh murmuring her name. It fills the room, that familiar rhythm of waves and foam and give and take, carrying them through the night.