"So how are the negotiations going?" Josh asked his wife.
"Not bad," the image on the screen told him. "Will's doing a good job."
"Did you have any doubts?" Josh asked as he lifted his beer bottle to his lips to take another sip. He toed off his shoes under the coffee table where the camera wouldn't catch him. He still remembered that lock down in the White House when he'd first met Will. The kid had impressed him even then. Before the group had left the building he'd given the teenager his card and told him to keep in touch. The teenager had done just that via e-mails and letters through the rest of the Bartlet administration. When Josh next saw him face to face, Billy had become Will, a recent graduate of Harvard. He'd become newly elected Senator Lyman's new assistant.
"Of course not," Donna snorted. It was she after all who had set Will on his current career path. Little more than a year after he'd joined the staff, Donna had told Josh that the position was holding Will back. Josh had agreed but didn't know what they could do about it. Donna had done a little digging within their network of associates and come up with a junior position at the U.S. Embassy in China. She'd brought the possibility to Josh and together they'd presented it to Will. The assignment had been anything but dull and had allowed Will's natural talents to shine. He'd been moving up the ranks of the State Department ever since. When Josh had become Secretary, he'd immediately recalled Will from a post overseas and made the younger man his deputy. "Have you packed for your trip?" she asked changing the subject.
"Yes, Donnatella. My bags are packed. Sara will be here at 8 am tomorrow to take me to Dulles," Josh confirmed for her.
"Did you pack..."
"Pills, check. Heating pad, check. Extra socks, check" Josh interrupted.
"Very good, Joshua" she complimented him with a smile.
"Miss you," he said fiddling with his wedding ring.
"I miss you too," Donna responded, "but don't get maudlin on me!"
"No, ma'am!" her husband agreed with a smile that showed the full effect of his dimples.
"Any news from the kids?" she asked.
"Which?" Josh asked.
"Take your pick" she commanded.
"I think Noah and Kate are getting closer to setting a date for the wedding," Josh said. "They came over last night and brought me dinner. Did you tell them to do that?"
"Uh huh," Donna admitted with a smile of her own.
"I can cook!" Josh protested.
"Not from what Sara tells me," Donna argued trying unsuccessfully to smother her giggles.
Josh didn't reply for a moment. He just sat watching her laugh at him. Her hair was gray now and there were wrinkles on her face, but he still saw the young woman she'd been that first day in his office at the 'Bartlet for America' campaign headquarters telling him she could be valuable. "My own daughter turned me in!" he mock growled as her laughter died when she noticed he wasn't laughing along.
"Like I didn't know already, Joshua" Donna snorted. "Or have you forgotten our first anniversary?"
Josh scratched behind his ear as he lowered his face trying to keep Donna from seeing the smile on his own face. "I got distracted," Josh protested though his dimples were out in full force.
"I'm just glad that C.J. wasn't your first call that time or we might have lost the entire house," Donna teased.
"It was just a small grease fire," he argued playing along. On the screen Donna smiled at him. Josh thought of this smile as her 'you're an idiot, but I love you anyway' smile.
"It was a small grease fire until you poured water on it," Donna corrected.
Josh was saved from attempting a comeback by the sound of the front door opening. "Dad?!" Sara called.
"In the living room, Sara" Josh called. "I'm talking to your mom."
"Hi, Mom" Sara said to the screen as she flopped down on the couch next to her father. "Where's Billy?"
"Hold on let me get him," Donna said just before she disappeared from the camera's view.
As they waited for Donna to bring Billy back, Josh asked, "So whatcha need, Peanut?"
"Dad, stop calling me Peanut," Sara admonished.
"Never," he told her. "Now what's up?"
Before Sara could answer Donna appeared back on the screen with Billy in tow.
"Hi," Billy said sharing an intimate smile with Sara.
"Hi," she said returning the greeting.
"Okay, I'm going to leave the room so you can talk dirty to Billy without blushing," Donna said on the screen. "Joshua," she added.
"What?" he asked feigning wide-eyed innocence.
"Go in the kitchen," she ordered.
"But I'm not allowed to cook," he protested as he resorted to biting the inside of his cheek to keep the smile off his face.
Sara wasn't as patient as her mother, at least not after having been separated from Billy for several weeks. She gave her father a shove off the couch. "Go," she ordered.
"Oww, Sara!" he grumbled. "I'm an old man! You could have hurt me!"
"Oh, Joshua, you big baby" Donna said. "Go in the kitchen, and I'll call you on the second line."
"M'kay. Will you talk dirty to me?" he teased.
"You know it," Donna murmured pitching her voice low and sexy.
"I thought I told you I did not want to know about your sex life!" Sara reminded them.
Josh could here Donna's laughter from the screen as he headed into the kitchen to wait for her call on the other line.
"Who knew teasing our kids about sex would be so much fun?" he said by way of greeting when the phone rang.
Donna's image on the much smaller screen of the kitchen phone chuckled at him. "That was fun," she agreed.
They would have been surprised to know that in the living room Sara was agreeing with them. "When we're their age, I want to be just like that with our kids," she told Billy.
"Jesus, Sara!" Billy swore. "Don't say things like that."
"Why not?" Sara asked glaring at him angrily.
"Because I'm a couple thousand miles away. I haven't seen you in two weeks, and you saying that makes me want to put you under me and work on making those kids" he growled in a voice hoarse with need.
"When you get back we'll have to do that then," she said.
"What?" Billy asked.
"Put me under you and work on making those kids," she answered giving him a smile that would have done justice to da Vinci's Mona Lisa for all the secrets it promised to reveal to him.
"I'm going to take a cold shower. A very long cold shower," he announced reaching for the button that would disconnect their call. "Love you."
"Love you, too" she said. Once Billy's image on the screen had faded she yelled. "I'm off the phone, Dad. If you're talking dirty to Mom, cut it out. I need to talk to you."
"About what?" he asked as he returned to the living room. He hit the button and her mother's image reappeared on the screen.
"I've got a line on who's behind one of the shadow corporations funding the WVWP," Sara said.
"Who?" Donna asked from her room in the embassy in India.
"You're not going to believe it," Sara warned.
"Who?" Josh repeated Donna's question.
"The name on the articles of incorporation is Mary Turner," Sara said.
"Do I know Mary Turner?" Josh asked.
"Turner was her name at the time the corporation was formed" Sara explained. "You know her by her married name."
"You're kidding," Josh scoffed. "Marsh? Mary Marsh?"
"The corporation was started by her parents to funnel their assets to her upon their death without going through the estate tax," Sara explained.
"So this was a long time ago then," Josh said. "I know she's a bigot, but..."
"The last donation from this corporation to the WVWP appeared on last year's disclosures," Sara told her parents quietly afraid of the reaction she was sure to come. "She's still giving them money."
"I'm going to murder that bitch!"
