PART SIX (FRIDAY MORNING)

"Josh?" This time it was Donna as his door looking pensive and concerned. It was six-thirty AM - early for even Donna to be here.

"Hey, you're here early," Josh commented. He sounded cheerful but tired, which was how he started most days.

"Josh, I saw a promo on TV last night. Did you know that, on 20/20 tonight..." she spoke as if full disclosure was full of daggers.

"Yeah, I know."

"Why didn't you say anything?" She asked.

"What is there to say?" asked Josh. There was slightest suggestion of annoyance in his voice. It was a tone which Donna was impervious under trivial circumstances. Today, though, his tone made her tread lightly about the subject.

She thought at first the question was rhetorical, but by his gaze, she knew it wasn't. "I don't know," she answered honestly, "I thought you would have mentioned it to me."

"Why?" he asked. The conversational tone had turned so quickly to prosecutorial. Donna hadn't expected that.

She held nothing back, "Because this is big, Josh. This guy wanted to kill you…"

"He wanted to kill Charlie," he corrected.

"Yeah, and he got you. And, I don't know…" she searched for the correct sentiment, "If I were you and this guy was going to go on TV and…"

"But you're not me." There was no inflection in his voice and Donna couldn't judge where this conversation was going.

"I know," was all she could think to say. She remained standing in the doorway with her eyes locked on Josh. It was clear she wasn't accepting the conversation as being over.

Josh finally relented. "Okay. Come in and shut the door."

His words came forth in one breathless statement, "Leo stopped by my office twice yesterday asking me if I was okay about the interview. Toby came by and asked me if I'm okay about the interview. CJ walked by my door three of four times yesterday and if she wasn't asking me if I was okay about the interview, she was giving me this weak little pity-smile. Sam called me yesterday and asked me if I'm okay about the interview. Look - I don't know how many ways or how many times I can explain to people, I am okay about the interview!" His voice had risen in volume by the end of his speech. It was not in anger, just in emphasis.

"Josh…" she couldn't let it go. Josh rolled his eyes in exasperation. Donna said nothing.

"It's been almost three years, Donna!" he shouted at her in exasperation.

She sat down in front of Josh's desk and waited for him to continue.

"You know…" He paused, "You know…" he started again, but sounding slightly less comfortable. His voice had decrease to just above a whisper,  "When I, you know, sat with Stanley…"  this was excruciating ground for Josh. He had never discussed in detail his marathon session with anyone, not even Leo. He had only discussed it in generalities. Even that night when Donna took him to the emergency room, the details had been limited.

Josh continued, "When Stanley gave me his diagnosis, I said 'That doesn't sound like something you can have and work for the president'."

"Post-Traumatic…" she said.

"Yeah," he resented every single time someone spoke those words out loud. Even when those words weren't spoken directly about him.

"Donna - it's like…"  he wanted to find the right words,  "Every time there is some thing about Roslyn…  Every time there is something about gun control. Every time a leader of some white supremacist group make some dumb-ass comment…."  his tone was full of disgust, "Every single time… people look at me differently. They wait for my reaction. It was okay before Christmas but then I sat with Stanley and you know how the crap like that travels. The day after Christmas every single person who works here knew that I had been diagnosed…  I'd been labeled…"

"So what, Josh…"  she was now sounding confrontational, "So what? They hurt you. It's something you might not ever be completely over…"

"That's it!"  he shot at her,  "That's it, exactly. When ever anything comes up, everyone looks at me like I'm damaged goods. Everyone KNOWS is something I might not ever get over! I'm tired of being the poster boy!"    

"So we're supposed to not care?" she asked, sarcastically.

"You wanna know something, Donna?" he asked leaning forward as if to tell her a secret

Donna suddenly wasn't sure she wanted to know. Maybe it was easier with Josh as a closed book. Easy or not, she nodded to indicate she was ready to hear what Josh had to say.

"You know that I can hear a door slam a dozen times and it doesn't do anything to me.  But…"  he hesitated and swallowed hard,  "but then there will be the one time and I just..."  he hesitated and swallowed hard before continuing,  "You know that I can be laying in bed and, every other night there is a siren that might go by my window and.… nothing,"  his hand fluttered through the air to emphasis his point as if trying to disperse a mist,  "but there'll be that one time. Maybe once a month, that a police car or ambulance goes by and the lights make patterns on my ceiling and…"

"Josh…" Donna half wanted to stem the tide of words, but knew she shouldn't. She was half sorry for digging out this revelation, but glad he was revealing it all to her.

"...the lights…  I'll be up all night. I'll be there for a few minutes or an hour but I grit my teeth. You know, it used to happen every time I heard a door slam or saw an ambulance or heard elevator music…"

"I know…"  confirmed Donna.

"but then it became every third time then every sixth time…"

"I know…"  she reiterated.

"We get better." Josh echoed the words that he had heard from Stanley what seemed so long ago. Josh smiled at Donna with his patented goofy grin.

Donna smiled back. She had come to offer comfort and instead Josh had comforted her.

"Are you going to watch it?" She asked, hesitantly.

"I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know."

"Okay," she could think of nothing else to say.

"You know how much it sucks riding in a presidential motorcade with all those lights an sirens…" he commented, with a chuckle.

Donna laughed a little at this. Josh was always good at leavening almost any situation.

"You have senior staff at eight. You'll need the memo on the thing and you meet with ways and mean at two…" Donna slipped back into business flawlessly and mentioned not another word to him about the interview.