Author's Note: So it turns out my hotel has wi-fi and it's not quite midnight yet in this time zone, so I haven't missed a day! Go me! This one's short and sweet, and hopefully given authentic road-trip zing by the many hours I spent in a pickup truck today. Hope you enjoy!

…...

Five hours and another driver switch later, they were mid-Ohio and Steph was singing along with They Might Be Giants to keep herself alert. Donna had taken some more ibuprofen and gone to sleep an hour earlier, more bothered than she wanted to admit by the pain from her injuries. Steph wondered, now that it was too late, whether they maybe should've waited another day or two before getting this show on the road, but she suspected that the speed at which they'd moved had kept Donna from any chance of corrosive second thoughts.

Donna had to be one of the smartest people Steph had ever met, but she was smart in unusual and hard to quantify ways. Regular smart, yeah, but also smart in how she worked with people, how she could draw the best out of them. Steph had literally been better at all her subjects when she studied with Donna, because Donna asked the right questions in the right way. She suspected that was also how Rick, who was a class A asshole and also not that bright, had gotten through med school thus far as well. Steph bet he'd be scrambling now, and wishing like hell he'd taken a raincheck on the booze. And despite all that, Donna had almost no confidence in her own abilities, mostly because she'd never found what she was good at while she'd been in college. When Donna had voluntarily admitted to being good at working on a political campaign, Steph had immediately determined to get her back there as soon as possible.

In the passenger seat Donna stirred and opened her eyes, blinking at the dashboard clock. "Ugh, where are we?"

"Almost to Pennsylvania," Steph reported cheerfully, turning down the music. "You slept through Cleveland, which is too bad because it was magnificent."

"I think I'll live," Donna murmured. "You want me to take another turn yet?"

"Nah, you've only been asleep for an hour, I'm still good. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay." At Steph's disbelieving glance, Donna modified her statement. "I'm better than I was yesterday. Still kind of sore." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "How are you doing?"

"Not too bad. I've never been to New York State, you know that?" Steph told her. "This feels like some kind of milestone in my life. We're going to be in spitting distance of Canada when we drive through Buffalo."

"I was born about five miles from the Canadian border," Donna murmured sleepily. "If there'd been any complications, my mom might've gotten airlifted to Winnepeg. I'd probably be a Canadian citizen."

"That might complicate you working on a presidential campaign," Steph mused. "Good thing your mom is a lot healthier than she thinks."

Donna smirked a little. "Don't be mean to my mom," she scolded. "She means well."

"She still thinks you're six years old, not to mention a terrible driver."

"I was a pretty terrible driver when I was six." Donna yawned and sat up a little in her seat, adjusting the pillow she'd been using. "She's having a hard time letting go because I'm the youngest, and I've been kind of a screwup. She wants to protect me."

"Hey now, if I can't be mean to your mom, you can't be mean to you," Steph reminded her. "You're twenty-four, and you're just starting to figure out what you want to do with your life. Another ten years, you still don't know what you want to be when you grow up, maybe you'll have a problem. But that's not gonna happen. Tell me about the campaign. What's that boss like, besides really disorganized and smart?"

"Well, those are two of his main defining traits," Donna confessed with a laugh. "He's incredibly confident, like whatever he does is going to work out just because it's his plan and he thought of it. He brought his best friend Sam along to join the campaign, and managed to talk him out of a partnership at a major law firm to make hardly anything working for Governor Bartlet. The two of them together are like a couple of kids sometimes, causing trouble, bothering CJ and Toby. He's really funny, but his humor is kind of offbeat. It's not like he's always telling jokes, but we'll be talking and get into a rhythm, and it's just fun."

Steph raised both her eyebrows and grinned. "Uh-huh. What does he look like?"

"Um, about my height, maybe an inch or two taller, brown eyes, curly brown hair." Donna's voice got a little bit wistful, but Steph was pretty sure she didn't notice. "He's thirty-six, but he looks younger, especially when he's smiling. He's got these dimples that are really cute-" Donna seemed to finally catch on to what she was saying and cut herself off with a blush Steph could see in the dark.

"Oh, Donna," Steph laughed. "You've got it bad."

"I completely do not," Donna denied immediately. "He's my boss! Besides, he has a girlfriend. A terrible girlfriend, but still."

"Well it seems to me that as a good assistant, you'd be doing him a favor by getting rid of the terrible girlfriend, right?" Steph teased. "And maybe replacing her with an infinitely superior model?"

"Okay, first off, it is totally not like that," Donna protested, her cheeks still flaming. "Josh is my friend, and he did me a huge favor by taking me on as his assistant. And he might not even be that happy to see me after I ditched him for one last mistake in Madison with Rick. My big life change could end up just being job hunting in New Hampshire."

"You're the one who says he's brilliant," Steph countered. "If he's half as smart as you think he is, he's going to jump at the chance to have you back. You'll be assisting again by Friday morning, tops."

"Your mouth to God's ear," Donna replied wryly. "But second of all, if he does take me back, then we'll be working together, professional coworkers, and I'll be his subordinate. Even if he were to ditch his girlfriend, there's no way he and I could... you know. Anything. It would look bad and unprofessional."

"So maybe you go and assist for somebody else," Steph suggested. "The other immature one, Sam? He probably needs help too."

"You're not wrong," Donna admitted with a soft chuckle, "but I don't want to work for Sam. He's really nice, but he's a speechwriter. All he does all day is pick out the right words for the Governor. Josh actually makes things happen, and it's exciting to be a part of that. I've already learned so much from him in just the few weeks I was there."

"You're the make-things-happen type," Steph agreed. "You'd probably go crazy if you were copy editing all day."

"Yeah," Donna agreed. "And even... even if, it's not like I'm ready to get into anything new right now anyway. I know how tired I am of being RickandDonna, I'm going to give just being Donna a shot for awhile. I want to work with Josh and learn from him, not date him." She sounded very sure of herself on that.

"You make excellent points," Steph had to admit. "But I still want to get a load of this guy when we get there."

Donna laughed. "I'm sure you'll notice him as soon as he's in the room. He's not exactly subtle."

"Sounds like my kind of guy," Steph mused. "Do you think he'd be into a long distance thing with a graduate student?" The glare Donna gave her for that had her chortling for the next five miles.

By the time they passed Erie, Steph was ready for a break and Donna had caught a little bit more sleep. They hit another gas station, switched places, and kept going. By the time they reached Buffalo, though, it was after two in the morning and neither of them were feeling particularly competent to drive, so they stopped in the parking lot of an all-night grocery store. Under Donna's able tutelage, Steph put up the windshield shades and hung blankets in the windows, then both of them wrapped up against the chill and reclined their seats. Steph was surprised at how easy it was to fall asleep despite the weird position, just from exhaustion.

She wasn't sure what time it was when she woke up, but the sun was rising and somebody was knocking on the window. Steph hastily straightened her seat and nudged Donna awake before she looked through the blanket curtain on her window.

A police officer was peering in at them curiously, a frown on his heavyset face. "Are you all right in there?"

Steph unrolled her window partway and tried a winning smile. "Absolutely, we're just fine," she told him. "Just getting a little sleep during our road trip." Next to her, Donna was nodding enthusiastically.

"Well you know you're not allowed to park all night in this lot without being in the store, that's trespassing," he informed them gravely. "I need your license and registration, please." Steph passed them over, chagrined, then she and Donna sat in silence while he looked them over. "Everything seems all right, but two young girls shouldn't be out sleeping in a car all night. That's very dangerous. Where are you going, anyway?"

"We're going to New Hampshire," Steph told him, making her face as open and earnest as possible. "We're hoping to get there by tonight."

"We want to join the Hoynes campaign!" Donna put in, so guilelessly that Steph almost choked on her laughter.

The officer handed back Steph's documents and looked them both over. "I have to tell you that it's time to be moving on out of this parking lot, but you be careful now. There's a lot of unsavory people out there who could hurt you or take advantage of you. Be careful."

"We definitely will," Steph assured him with a fervent nod. Within minutes, she and Donna had disassembled their little camping setup and headed for the interstate again, figuring that waiting to pee was the better part of valor. Steph lasted two whole exits before finally bursting out, "We're joining the Hoynes campaign?"

"Well, if he was going to arrest us, we didn't want to be associated with Bartlet, right?" Donna reminded her pragmatically. "It was just a little fib."

"You're a terrible person, and I think lying to the police is some kind of felony, so you'd better watch out," Steph warned, laughing. "You could get in a lot of trouble that way." Donna just rolled her eyes. "How many more miles?"

"Something like four hundred fifty," Donna reported. "We should be there in eight or nine hours unless the traffic is extra bad."

"Perfect!" Steph announced. "We'll be in Manchester by dinnertime."