III

"Mr. President? Leo."

Jed looked up from his desk guiltily. He was supposed to have been going over yet another finance report, but instead he'd been on the edge of dozing.

"Thank you, Charlie." He made an effort to sit up.

"Mr. President, I've got your statement of support from Sam." Leo was smiling; it had to be good. He scrabbled for his glasses and took the report.

"CJ's handling the press beautifully," Leo continued. "We're under attack from... a lot of sides, but we're holding up."

Jed squinted at the report. The letters all seemed to blur together. "Is this in a smaller font than usual?" he asked irritably.

Leo leaned over. "No, it's the regular size," he said with a frown.

He tugged his glasses off and polished them on his tie. "I think I need new glasses."

"Well, gee, I'm sure nobody would mind if you blew off a couple of budget meetings to see the optometrist."

Jed gave him a look. "What's happening with Josh?"

"Donna's taking care of it," said Leo simply.

"Okay," Jed nodded, satisfied. If Donna was on the case, he could rest assured it would be handled. Now all he had to worry about was his six billion other points of concern.

Not to mention his failing eyesight.

"I'm not coming back." Josh sat on the back step of his mother's house, gazing out into the distance. Donna sat beside him, an open file balanced on her knees. Despite the strangeness of their surroundings, they seemed to connect together as easily as ever.

"Okay, but we're gonna have trouble working from here. I guess you could get one of those video-conferencing things, but it's not really incredibly practical-"

"I..." Josh shook his head. "Donna, what are you doing here?" he demanded again.

She gave him a look as if he was the insane part of this equation. "I'm your assistant; I'm assisting. I had Bonnie pass your eleven-thirty on to Toby..."

"Whoa, whoa!" he held up a hand. "You're not my assistant anymore, Donna. I quit."

"Yes, but we have a strategy to deal with that."

"You have a strategy?"

"We're strategically ignoring you. Hold these." She handed him a set of page dividers which he took as she flipped through the pages of notes. Without even thinking about it, he handed them back one at a time as she needed to insert them.

"What are you doing there?" he asked.

"Indexing." Donna didn't look up.

"So I noticed."

"And yet you still asked."

"And yet you were not forthcoming," Josh accused.

"I forthcame."

"That you were indexing."

"Indeed."

"And what, exactly, are you indexing?"

"Stuff."

"Again with the forthcoming."

"I'm a veritable font of information," Donna shrugged.

"Most of it useless," he observed.

"Only to people who don't properly utilise resources."

He reached back for one of the many, many trivia snippets she saw fit to sprinkle his day with. "There'll come a time when I'll need to know that lemons contain more sugar than strawberries?"

"You could be diabetic one day, it could save your life."

Josh snorted. "Oh, like I don't have enough problems already, you've got to invent more for me?"

"Nothing wrong with you that wouldn't be cured by a brain transplant," Donna informed him archly. "Or failing that, a good swift kick up the-"

"Hey!"

"I'm just paraphrasing," she shrugged.

He scowled. "Paraphrasing who?"

"You know. People. CJ. Leo. The president."

"The president said I need a kick up the ass?"

"Well, you know. I read between the lines."

"I'll bet."

There was a discreet throat-clearing, and Josh looked up to see his mother standing behind them. His immediate instinct was to blush. Damn, my mom just heard me say 'ass'.

She looked down at him with a smile that was both fond and tinted with a sad resignation. "Joshua. Go back to work."

"Mom?" He pulled his mother aside as she and Donna made a scarily efficient team getting him packed up for the return to Washington.

His mother sighed, and then looked him in the eye. "Joshua, I know what you're going to say."

Josh smiled at her in faint puzzlement and shook his head. "Mom, you always... I know you always worried about me, off in Washington. You said that this job was gonna be the death of me, and now that it, now that I... why are you telling me to go back?"

"Josh." His mother took his face in her hands, the way she'd always done when he was a little boy and had needed to look up to her, not down at her. "I worry about you. I'm your mother, it's what I do." She sighed, and drew away from him. "I won't lie to you, Joshua, it's hard to see you go away, and it breaks my heart to see how hard you work yourself. But it's where you belong."

"Mom..." His voice trembled, and he felt closer to the edge of breaking down than he could ever let himself be with anybody else in the world but his mother. "Mom, I'm not sure I can do this. I'm not sure I can go back. What if I'm not strong enough? What if I can't cope? What if I..." He closed his eyes. "What if I let them down?"

A succession of faces flashed through his mind. Leo, the president, two men who in many ways were as much his fathers as Noah Lyman had ever been. CJ. Toby. And Sam...

His friend Sam, who he'd brought into this, dragged into the world of politics with the promise of the Real Thing. Sam, who he could barely stand to face anymore. It was he who'd sworn to Sam that this was the place he needed to be, this was the way they could change the world. But the world had kept on growing darker, and he'd seen disillusionment growing and innocence bleeding, and...

And it was easier not to look Sam in the eye anymore.

Josh had already let his best friend down, wounded him with promises he couldn't keep. It was better that he walked away while he could, before he hurt anybody else. Before he raised any more hopes and cruelly dashed them to the ground.

His mother kissed him, a feather-light touch on his forehead, and his eyes flickered open. "Oh, Joshua," she said softly. "You're strong. You're your father's son, and you're stronger than you know. And you need to be back where you belong."

"I'm scared that I might not make this, mama," he said quietly, slipping back into the childhood reference without even thinking of it. "I'm scared I... sometimes I don't like the person this is turning me into."

"You can do this, Joshua. And you'll never be anybody other than Noah Lyman's little boy." She smiled at him. "Even if I have to come up there and 'kick your ass' into shape myself."

"Mom!" he yelped, scandalised.

She laughed at him, and Donna appeared in the doorway, smiling tentatively at the sight of the two of them. "And if I can't," his mother added with a nod at her, "I'm sure Donna will be there to do it for me."

"Hey, don't give her any ideas," Josh said mock-sternly, feeling his face split into a grin for the first time in forever.

"I don't need any ideas, Joshua, I've got plenty," Donna informed him. She loaded both his and her bags into his arms, causing him to stagger slightly. "Carry those, big strong man, we've got a plane to catch."

His mother smiled at the two of them, and followed them out into the hall. Josh hung back to gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I love you, mom."

"You bring me joy, Joshua. I worry, but I love you, and I could never ask you to do anything other than you do." She watched him dump the bags into the waiting car. "Although grandchildren wouldn't go amiss, you know!" she called, from the doorway.

Josh turned to Donna. "Quick, let's get out of here!"

His mother blew him a kiss as he climbed into his seat, and he waved in reply. Beside him, Donna squirmed around to fumble with her safety belt. "Hey, at least your mom isn't trying to marry you off to some Republican Wisconsin gomer," she observed.

"That's only because she doesn't know any."

And then they were gone. Leaving Florida, heading back to Washington.

Heading home.