DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.
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The simple burial service, attended by the two presidents and their first ladies along with the remaining staff from the Bartlet White House and about thirty of Josh's protégé's and staff, ended with the traditional filling of the grave. They left the immediate area, leaving the family to say their goodbyes. After five minutes or so, Noah and Seth helped Leah across the muddy turf toward the waiting limo.
Jed clapped his hand on Donna's shoulder after another two or three minutes. "Mom, are you ready?"
She didn't look at him, instead focusing on the harsh edges of the name already carved into the stone in defiance of yet another Jewish custom. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets against the chill. "Not yet, lovebug. Go talk with Uncle Sam and Aunt Ainsley for few minutes or something, if you don't mind. I . . . I need some time alone."
"Okay. But call me when you're ready to leave. I don't want you to try to get across the grass by yourself."
She listened to his squishing footsteps as he retreated. "He's a good boy, our Jed. So is Seth, and Noah is a gem. Leah, well, you know about our diamond. She's not so rough anymore."
She knew it was irrational, but she wanted Josh to answer her. Just one more time.
But no answer came. She hung her head for a moment, then set a smile on her face and spoke to the mound of dirt that marked her husband's burial place, telling him for the millionth time what she had thought when she first saw him fully revealed. "It would have been very difficult to work for you if I had really known what a god you were under those stiff shirts and messy ties. My fantasies were bad enough."
In her head, she heard his voice, raspy with desire and hoarse with frustrated withdrawal from her touch as she watched him dress that first morning. "I never thought I could want you more than I have wanted to make love to you since the moment you walked through the door in New Hampshire. I was wrong. If you were a habit before, now you're an addiction I never want to treat."
She moved around to the back of the stone, where a small brass box had been mounted. She opened the box and pulled out a plastic tube. With cold, numb hands she twisted the end open, then laid the two pieces atop the stone and shoved her hands back into the warmth of her pockets.
She stood, looking out at the other graves but not seeing anything, for a few moments before she straightened her spine and heaved a tired sigh. Donna pulled her hands from her pockets, a piece of paper in each hand. She rolled the larger part of the heart into a tube and with deliberate movements slid it into the plastic tube, then sealed it tight and put it back into the brass box.
Tears flowed again as she struggled to say what she needed to say. "I've lost my heart, Joshua. Only the smallest part remains to beat lonely night after lonely night. Until we meet again in another realm, my darling Joshua. I love you."
Donna Moss Lyman turned away from her husband's grave, holding the small piece of the heart that had been theirs since a fateful encounter on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. She knew it would only be for a while, but as he had once been incomplete without her, she was now, without him, incomplete.
-FIN-
