Chapter Four: My Confession
I won't claim that I was the one who worked it all out. Well, I'd worked some things out but I'd never done more than work them out as single, isolated facts. Bringing them together wasn't in my capabilities at that time. I'd love to say that Josh trusted me with it long before it came out but it wasn't the sort of secret he could trust people with. Only Donna could know, any one else knowing put them at risk. He did hint at it though, he wanted me to work it out for myself because then he could confide in me. Six months ago he tried to hint it to me so I couldn't work it out for myself. I wasn't paying enough attention but I found out that day anyway.
"Come out to dinner with me and Mal tonight." We were sitting in my office eating salads. Mine had been forced upon me at the insistence of my girlfriend who had pointed out that a high stress job would only lead to a heart attack especially when one was eating the same kind of rubbish one had eaten in college. I had expected Josh to bring in a burger or at least some kind a decent sandwich from the deli but instead he had arrived carrying a similar Perspex case to the one that sat on my desk. I should have recognised the mark of a girlfriend but I'm afraid I didn't.
"Do I have to?"
"Yes."
"But it'll be a couples thing...I'm not a couple. You'll share plates and whisper to each other and I'll sit there with no one to eat my fries. Okay that was my first clue of the conversation, or it would have been if I'd been picking up on them. If Josh got fries Donna somehow managed to eat them, even if she hadn't been at the table when they arrived. It was just one of their things, always had been.
"Bring someone then."
"Oh yeah like that'll happen." he scoffed, "Hi, my name is Josh Lyman would you like to come with me to dinner? One thing, my best friend and his very serious girlfriend will also be there. No pressure."
"Not like that, just bring a friend." I was getting a little fed up with Josh whining, it felt like he hadn't whined for ages and now I was getting the whole load of it. It was at this point that I realised he hadn't been whining to me for a few months now. Not about this kind of thing anyway.
"I don't have any friends, except you and Donna and the others."
"Bring Donna then."
"Okay."
Yeah I should have picked up on that, I mean it was a very swift agreement with no whining about Donna not wanting to go with him or having a boyfriend. And then again came the recognition that I hadn't heard the gomer whine for a while. Not that I made anything of that; I just decided that he had finally got over his assistant, not that he had ever said he was, in the immortal words of Ross Geller, under her.
It had taken me awhile to work out that he had liked her, but not as long as it had taken him to work it out. It started with the casual hints, the way he couldn't go a whole conversation without mentioning her name, and then stuff just built up. The first time I knew, the first time it was more than just a guess and a bit of a romantic wish, was after that night at the polling banks. It wasn't so much that he was asking why I thought Donna was trying to get him to ask Joey out so much as the way he did it. Let me just say this before I go much further, I might be able to write things down but I'm not so good with the whole description of events thing.
Anyway, that was the first real time I knew for sure. There are hundreds of other moments I could name, hundreds of moments when I knew, or wanted to say something to the pair of them or just wanted to shout it from the roof tops, but we're losing track here. Or rather I am. Anyway, Josh went back to work with a look on his face that should have told me everything. We all miss so much when we don't look hard enough.
Mal and I were a little late to the restaurant, over the years I've developed a curious habit of not being able to leave the office until I absolutely have to and since Josh suffers from the same condition I was surprised to see him already there with Donna, sitting at a table a few feet away and talking.
"Sam...you didn't say he asked her out at last." Mal said quietly in my ear. Can I just say that intimate comments like that are one of the best things about being in a relationship. In a public place anyway.
"He's just bringing her along to make it an even four." I dismissed the idea just as I had earlier.
"Then why is he holding her hand?"
I cast Mal a sceptical look but she merely nodded towards the table top. Josh's hand was lightly covering Donna's and you could tell it was just something that happened all the time, there was nothing unusual about it being there to either of them.
"He didn't say a thing." I managed
"Well maybe that's because dating your assistant is a big no no out here." Mal offered, but she was smiling.
"A bit like dating your boss's daughter?"
"Very much like that."
We took a step closer, unwilling to break up the moment but both more than a little curious about what was unfolding before us.
"They're almost 40 minutes late," we heard Josh say quietly, "How about we give them ten minutes more and then we go home and do what I'm sure they're doing right now?" He smirked and Donna matched his smile with one of her own.
"That sounds like a good idea. We haven't just watched a movie together in ages...all we seem to do these days is have sex."
"Donnnnnaa." Josh whined, in that way of his.
"Yes Joshua?"
"I was sorta thinking that maybe we could take some valuable time together to--"
"Have sex again today?" she prompted wickedly.
"I mean, if I was to suggest sex after the movie would you have a problem with that?"
"Since when have I ever been able to say no to the idea of sex with you?" Donna asked.
"You did for four years"
"In my defence you never asked me then."
It was at this point that I felt the need to interrupt, good friends though we may all be there were limits to what I wanted to know about Josh's sex life. In the hopes that I could lull them both into a false sense of security, to persuade them that they hadn't been over heard I offered up the banal phrase "Sorry we're late"
To say they jumped in surprise would be hyperbolic by its very nature but Donna did flinch and I noticed that Josh's fingers tightened slightly on top of hers.
"Sam, Mal." Donna's voice was full of the cheeriness of a guilty party.
"So Josh..." I said in an undertone, having helped Mal into her chair, "You managed to persuade Donna to come okay then?"
He half glared, half smirked at me trying to convey 'not now' without moving his lips. He managed it alright, but I knew I was going to plough on ahead. I'm like that. However, before I could Mal spoke up.
"I hope neither of you take this in the wrong way but it's about time."
"About time?" Josh squeaked.
"Josh it's been painstakingly clear to everyone, and I do mean everyone, that you have liked Donna for a while so I'm glad you bit the bullet and told her."
"Who said he told me first?" Donna's voice contained that hint of amused defiance which we had all come to know so well.
"You let her tell you first?" I asked Josh in surprise. I had never really thought he'd be the one finding it hard to say those things, I always figured that Donna would be too worried about what it would entail that, as the sensible one, that she would hold back and Josh would rush in.
"No." Josh said with an indulgent smile, "In our own dysfunctional way we told each other at the same time."
"And what he means by that," Donna finished, "Is that someone else pointed it out to us both when we were all in a room together."
"Who?" I asked, "I want to meet this person, I want to shake their hand, I want to give them some kind of tribute as the person who finally made you both admit what everyone else has known for so long."
"Somehow I don't think she'd appreciate it." Donna said with a smile.
"Well, you never know," Josh pretended to mull it over, "Amy always liked to hear others praise her."
"The she-devil told you?" Mal asked with as much shock in her voice as I felt, noting Josh's look she shrugged, "My Dad really doesn't like her."
"Not many people do." Donna mused
"I did" Josh's attempt to stand up for his ex-girlfriend was half hearted at best.
"Yes but, as previously discussed, your judgement is rather flawed in those areas." Donna teased him.
"No more so than yours."
"And yet somehow you fell for me and I for you."
"Law of averages, if you fall for enough of the wrong people you're bound to find the right one eventually."
They seemed to have forgotten we were even there, descending into their own world where banter counted as foreplay. Mal was watching with an amused smile on her face, I was still trying to make sense of what I had been told.
"Can we just go over how exactly Amy was the one to tell you guys that you belonged together? I know she's tactless but surely that was signing her own death warrant as far as your relationship with her was concerned?" I asked Josh.
"Well, she did her research first." Donna began, "You have to credit her with that. One night we had some kind of stand off, it wasn't anything major but I said too much and then you could see it made her think. Later that night she just came out and asked me, asked me if I was in love with Josh, and I couldn't say no but I couldn't say yes either so I didn't say anything. She gave me this long lecture about how clichИd it was to fall for your boss, how pathetic it was, and how he loved her not me and that I should grow up, move on and get another job." she smiled slightly, "And I, as ever, took next to none of her advice."
"And then she asked me." Josh took over, "I suppose it must have been a few weeks later but we were at my house and I had to call Donna for something. Something stupid...I can't remember what it was-"
"You'd left your suitcase somewhere and you needed to know where." Donna finished for him.
"That was it, anyway so I called Donna and she knew exactly where it was and then she started giving me a lecture for being such a child and not being able to look after myself properly. So I pointed out I could too look after myself and she just laughed and asked me when I'd last done my own laundry...well, we were just having one of those conversations, and after about an hour she said she had to go to sleep now because she had to be my wake up call in six hours so I let her go and walked back into my room humming and Amy pounced on me."
I pulled a face at this but Josh was quick to correct me, "Metaphorically Sam, she asked me why it took an hour to locate a suitcase and a whole host of other things and I ended up saying that Donna had known exactly where it was straight away and that after that we'd been talking. She told me she'd heard, and that falling for your blonde secretary was as big a cliche as your secretary falling for you." He shook his head disparagingly, "You know for someone who fights for women's rights Amy never really did get the difference between secretary and assistant."
"Did you realise she was talking about Donna being in love with you too?" Mal asked, looking enthralled.
"No." Josh looked a little shamefaced, "I was too busy denying the fact I was in love with Donna."
"So the next day she came into my office at lunch time and Donna was in there going over some stuff with me. I told her I didn't have time for lunch and she said she knew but she hadn't come in for that, she'd come to tell me that it was pointless dating someone who was in love with his assistant."
"And Josh blushed and began stammering that Amy had no right to come in here and accuse him of these things and I-"
"You were blushing just as much as I was and you were concentrating very hard on the files in front of you." Josh continued, "And just as I was beginning to get really very worried that neither Donna or Amy would be speaking to me by the end of the day Amy decided to tell Donna that it was okay now, she could stop pretending to work because she was just as guilty as falling for me as I for her."
"Actually she asked me whether I'd imagined it like this, with Josh frantically denying everything." Donna corrected raising her eyebrows at the sentiment.
"So I said I wasn't denying anything and that Amy had better get out. Amy left, telling me she'd already taken all of her crap out of my apartment and then I turned to Donna and--"
"And?" I asked, just as hooked on this story as my girlfriend was.
"We talked." Donna said matter of factly, "We talked for a long time about everything and decided that we couldn't deal with it now. Then I went back to my desk, determined to find another job, and then," she paused and smiled in a slightly goofy-oh-so-in-love-way, "the intercom on my desk buzzed and Josh's voice came through telling me he didn't know why he was using this thing as it was so complicated but could I please come into his office. So I went in and he was running his hands through his hair all distractedly, he shut the door behind me and told me that there was something he had forgotten to say just now. And he told me he loved me and if I'd meet him outside in ten minutes we could go for lunch."
"Where did you go?" I asked, half wanting to know and half wondering if someone had seen them there.
"We didn't quite make it further than my car." Josh said with a hint of embarrassment and a hint of pride.
"I don't think I needed to know that." I muttered to my plate more that to anyone else.
"Well you asked." Mal pointed out sweetly.
"Remind me to kill you later." I grinned.
"Anyway it wasn't like that." Donna hastened to explain, obviously highly embarrassed, "We just kissed...a lot...and then went back to work."
"When was this?"
"Four months ago."
"You've kept this a secret for four months?" I was shocked and grudgingly impressed, I didn't realise Josh could keep a secret for longer than a minute.
"After the whole four years without telling it wasn't exactly taxing." Donna mused.
"But four months? I wish I'd asked you why Amy dumped you again."
"So you weren't together at the inauguration?" Mal asked, "Just it looked like you were."
"We weren't." Josh clarified, "I mean we would have been but there were other people in the taxi."
"Besides, that would have really hampered Amy's coming to see you the next day." Donna seemed amused in a resigned way.
"Can I help it if I look so good at an inauguration that Amy just wanted me?"
"Josh; if you value your life you will never utter that sentence again. Ever." Donna warned.
"Yes ma'am!" Josh all but saluted. We all laughed, there was just something comical about it.
"So when are you going to tell the press?" I asked, two courses later.
"When they ask." Josh said, his arm draped protectively around Donna's shoulders.
"That has got to be the stupidest plan I ever heard. They'll find it out and then where will the administration be?"
"No they won't, you didn't."
"I'm not a member of the White House Press Corps. You have to tell CJ."
"We will, just not yet."
"She'll kill you if the press find out first" I warned, pointless but true.
"They won't find out." Josh reassured me, and I believed him. More fool me.
Since this is Josh and Donna's story and not mine I don't feel that it's fair for me to be the one to tell you every moment in between the time they told me and the time that the press found out. I will say this though: they were happy; unbelievably so and in the way that I'd wanted to see them happy ever since I put three and six together to make a number that was almost nine.
It wasn't easy for them and they didn't like lying to CJ but every time they plucked up the courage to begin to tell her what was going on something happened. The President's daughter was kidnapped, the President proved the power of the constitution by temporarily removing himself from office, former Presidents died, well this is the White House, these things happen a lot. There was one moment I remember most vividly, however, from the period when Zoey was kidnapped: during the first twenty four hours I went over to Josh's office to talk something over with him and I heard Donna crying in there. I sort of hovered in the doorway, my feeling that this was a private moment being overcome by my more inquisitive side, and saw her lying on the couch with her head in Josh's lap crying her heart out while he stroked her hair and whispered comforts to her, he looked up at one point and, seeing that I was there, gestured for me to come back in a bit. Twenty minutes later I returned and everything was as normal.
"Sorry I couldn't speak to you earlier."
"It's fine, is she okay?"
"She's been better, she was speaking to Charlie and the way he was talking just reminded her of Rosslyn too much. She says that its bad enough that neither of us can ever forget it but when it's brought back to her like that--"he broke off, "She just...she hates realising how close she was to losing me." There was not a hint of Lyman swagger in his voice, just the pain of someone who worries about exactly the same thing.
"But she didn't." I tried to be slightly upbeat about it and Josh nodded and we returned to our work. When you're worried about something as personal as that sometimes work can be the best relief.
I walk back to my office with a song in my heart. Donna and I have been let off, no one wants to kill us, or worse fire us. The sun is shining, birds are singing and I am in the red. This is my day of Jubilee, this more than calls for the finest muffins and bagels in the land. I have drunk from the keg of glory and no one is going to kill my mood.
Donna hurries on ahead, trying to make it seem like we're not together. Old habits die hard, although technically old habits would have us doing a walk and talk round about now. Still, nothing can ruin my day now. I pause in the bullpen momentarily, staring up as the news flashes onto screen, thankful that there is no mention of the story. I stick it out until the end of the news cycle, just in case, before turning and walking into my office. Without focusing on anything I look back behind me and yell "DONNA."
"I'm in the room Josh." her quiet voice says from the sofa. I look over and indeed she is there. With CJ.
"Glad you could make it Joshua." CJ smiles enigmatically at me, "If you'd care to sit, Donna was just running me through the essentials of your relationship so that when I come to breif the press I know what I'm talking about."
I groan, and sink into a chair opposite CJ.
"Okay we've got the first date, the first time you told each other you loved one another, first time you had sex-" CJ stops in mid sentence, most likely because she has heard the high pitched squeak I seem to have made,"Yes Josh?"
"Donna...did you tell her that?" I ask, torn between being mock appalled and flat out appalled.
"No Josh. She guessed a date and I just said yes." Donna shakes her head in exasperation.
"You told her?" I repeat, Donna shrugs, "Traitor."
"Josh, back to the matter at hand please--" CJ begins but I cut her off.
"Since you need to know everything, allow me to tell you." And I do. I talk about things that make CJ writhe in her chair and things that make Donna look angrier by the second. I'd stop but I'm enjoying the shade of pink CJ has turned and I haven't noticed just how pissed Donna is until she gets up and walks out of the room. She never makes a scene, never throws a tantrum, but she can still catch your attention.
"Donna!" I call after her, looking around frantically I leap to my feet, "Have you got enough for now?" I ask CJ hurriedly, forgetting the game I have just been playing.
"More than enough." CJ looks ill, if I wasn't worried that my relationship with Donna is about to end I would take a moment to savour this. As it is I rush out into the bullpen and find Donna behind her desk.
"Donna?"
"Not now Josh."
"Why not now?"
"Because this is work Donna now, home Donna is pissy and if she were to be unleashed here I think everyone in this building would realise that we're not just dating, we're also fighting in public."
"I'm sorry." I grovel
"Home Donna doesn't give a crap."
"I'm sorry." I repeat and I move over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and bending down to whisper into her ear, "I'm sorry, I was pig headed and arrogant and a jerk."
"At least we agree on that."
"I was just being proud of my beautiful, talented and sexy girlfriend. Is that a crime?"
"Couldn't you have been proud without mentioning how often we have sex?"
"Yes. But that way CJ would have been in her comfort zone. Besides, aren't you proud of how many times a week we have sex?"
"I think you mean times a day." Donna replies but she's smiling now.
"Well yes, but this is a public place, there might be children around or something. I was sparing them."
"To make up for not sparing CJ." she suggests.
"I'm sorry." I repeat, hanging my head a little. This is enough for Donna to relent, "Is home Donna unpissy now?" I ask hopefully.
"She might be, it depends on how nice you are when we get home."
"Guys. Work. Information. Not. Needed." CJ has yet to regain her full use of speech but we get the point.
"Right back to work." I agree and then stand up to be faced with a whole hoard of staring eyes, "Guys, there's a country to run. Get to it." I say briskly, walking into my office to go play solitare.
"There's my man." Donna says with a smile more to her computer screen than anyone else, but I hear it and CJ does too by the look on her face, "Going to hide in his office while the rest of us do the work."
Quite right too.
AN: sorry this took me so long to get up. I have no real excuse other than work load and a lack of muse. Not that that's really good enough, anyway. Hope you enjoyed and thank you for all your kind reviews so far. Next chapter look out for our guest speaker DANNY!