10: Gallivanting About

As usual, Josh's psychic assistant detector seemed to warn him the very instant she got within shouting distance. "Donnatella Moss!"

"Joshua Lyman?" she replied, poking her head through his office door.

"I come back to the office from my meeting, Donna, and what do I find?"

"Scrambled heaps of paperwork dating back to 1982?"

"I find, Donnatella, that my dedicated assistant is nowhere in sight. Thinking, perhaps, that she is busy on some urgent matter of state, retrieving files - or else fetching coffee for her kind, thoughful, sensitive boss - I patiently wait for her to return and appraise me of my schedule for the rest of the day. And I wait. And wait."

"First of all, Joshua, someone with a purported seven-sixty verbal ought to be able to puzzle out his own schedule from the neatly typed sheet headed 'Schedule'. Second of all, I was indeed busy on an urgent matter - I was talking to Toby. And third of all, even had I been here, I would not have been getting you coffee, as delivery of hot beverages is not part of my dedicated assistant job description."

"You know, we're really going to have to do something about this insubordination problem of yours."

"Is that any way to speak to the woman you just spent the night with?"

"Donna!" Eyebrows shooting up to meet his hairline, he quickly yanked her inside and slammed the door. "I can't believe you just said that!"

"Oh, no one was listening," she shrugged, enjoying the blush rapidly spreading across his features.

"What if one of the other assistants overheard you saying something like that? You were the one worrying about CJ murdering the pair of us!"

"Josh, the people out there are my friends. If they heard me say something like that, they'd just assume I was joking."

"Would they?" said Josh softly, and for a moment she was caught short by the expression on his face. Then, as always, he quickly broke the moment. "You talked to Toby? What about?"

"Oh, you know. He told me that vampires were real and it was my destiny to slay them. Gave me a sword." She waved the cardboard box she was holding at him.

"A sword?" Josh reached inside and drew it out, looking at the blade with some amazement. "A sword," he agreed. Donna was amused to see it took him both hands to hold it upright, and he couldn't keep it steady.

"My sword," she agreed. "Kind of a 'good luck with your new destiny' present." She took it from him and casually hefted it one-handed.

Side-tracked by the sword, Josh was only just catching up with the conversation. "Wait, Toby told you it's your destiny to be a vampire Slayer?"

"Yup. Apparently it's his job to watch out for potential Slayers, and make sure they know what to do. He's gonna train me in my lunch hours and everything."

"Wait - Toby's gonna teach you how to slay vampires?" Then a more pressing thought struck him. "Wait - he's gonna steal you away from me in your lunch hours?"

"You know, technically, Josh, those lunch hours are my own free time to do with as I see fit."

"Again with the insubordination."

"Josh, I've gotta train sometime. And since both Toby and I are very busy people-"

"So am I! I need my assistant."

"Remember those words, Josh, when next we broach the subject of my well-deserved and long overdue pay raise."

"Technically, if you're going to be gallivanting about with Toby for an hour every day, that should be a pay cut."

"'Gallivanting about'?"

"And more insubordination! Mocking your superior's vocabulary."

"I seldom think of you as my superior, Josh."

"I would remind you that I hold your future job security in my hands."

"True. However, in my hands I hold a three-foot-long edged weapon. I can't help feeling that the balance of power in this relationship has shifted."

There was knock on the office door. "Shouldn't you be out there working instead of in here, giving me lip?" Josh demanded.

"'Giving you lip'? And you're the one who's worried about people overhearing things?"

Josh went an extremely satisfactory shade of bright red. Smirking, Donna stuffed the sword back in the box and carried it outside.

It was Sam. As she returned to her desk and shoved the box underneath it, he said plaintively "C'mon, Donna, what's really in the box?"

"A sword," she and Josh said in perfect chorus.