"Josh, you have to go back to work."
"I don't like the idea of leaving you here," he argued.
Donna gave him a look. "Joshua, I'm sitting in the middle of a German hospital, in you know, Germany, what do you think could possibly happen to me?"
"I'll go home when you go home," he remarked crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.
"Josh, that's weeks away. The country needs you."
"You know what, they brought Angela in once they can do it again. I'm replaceable."
"Josh," Donna growled. "I'm fine, I'm going to keep on being fine. My Mother left two days ago. I have a lot of rehab to go through and then I'll be coming home. Will you just go back to work!"
"Do you really want me to leave?"
Donna looked at him for a minute. "Not really, no," she admitted.
"Then why are you pushing?"
"Josh, you have to get back to work. You can't be sitting in your..."
"So help me god, Donna, if you say assistant," Josh warned.
Donna closed her mouth. "You have to go back to work."
Josh sat down in the chair and huffed, "I know."
"Then why are you fighting me on this?"
"Because the first time I let you out of my sight you were in a car bomb in Gaza, the second time I let you out of my sight you had a blot clot!" He didn't mean to yell, the emotions were rocking his insides and he couldn't seem to get a hold of himself.
"Josh, this isn't your fault." She held her hand out for his. He stood up and placed his hand in hers. "I get you, I get what's going on inside you and this isn't your fault."
"Donna," he whispered in protest.
"Josh, you need to go back to DC. You need to go back to your job. I talked to Leo's, he's hired you a new assistant. They need you. The country needs you. I promise I'm going to be okay."
Josh caressed her hand lightly with his own and stared at her for a long moment. "One more night and you have the nurse call me if your temperature changes one degree."
"Agreed." She nodded.
He pulled her hand up to his lips and lightly kissed the palm of her hand. "Let's see what they've brought you for breakfast."
"Josh is coming home tomorrow."
Toby peered up from his desk. "Really? Who twisted his arm?"
C.J. plopped down on his couch. "Donna, who else?"
"I wonder how the hell she managed that." Toby ran his hands over his face. "It'll be so nice to see them walking down the hall arguing about the latest inane trivia she's found. I can't wait for that." He let out a long sigh.
"Yeah." C.J. smiled faintly at the thought of the two of them bantering.
"Who did you talk to?"
"Donna, she called when Josh went to clean up a bit after breakfast."
"How does she sound?"
"She sounds good."
"Good."
"How's Andi?"
"She's good. She's glad all the funerals are taken care of and she just wants to relax."
"Huck and Molly?"
"They're good."
"Toby, we've got three more years left and I'm not sure how much more disaster and bad news I can take. Doesn't it have to get better at some point?"
"It will, we always recover."
"Yeah, but how long until the next bomb goes off?"
Josh wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up. He looked around the room, it was darker than normal, but there was still plenty of light so the nurses could move in and out of the room, see what the need to see and not disturb anyone. He stood up out of the chair and walked over to Donna's bedside.
He had told her that if he was leaving in the morning that he refused to spend his last night in the hotel room. She finally relented but told him that she didn't want to hear about his aching back.
He carefully moved a strand of hair out of her face and lightly caressed her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open and Josh retracted his hand.
"If I am going to be attuned to you, you're going to have to learn how to sleep," she murmured.
"Sorry." He managed a weak smile and looked down when he felt her hand slip into his.
"I was joking. Don't you have a sense of humor at three o'clock in the morning?"
"I want to stay," he said desperately.
"Joshua, you can't."
"I can. The country doesn't need me."
"They do. I'll be home soon enough and you can bother me at home as much as you want."
"You bet your ass, but I still don't want to go home."
"Josh, Leo was really nice to let you come here in the first place. You need to go back. They need your help. You can only take so much vacation."
"Everyone understands why I am here."
"I know, Josh, but the thing is, I'm your friend and your assistant and while I know that everyone seems to understand that, you have to go back to work."
"Yeah." Josh felt his anger stirring.
"You should get some more sleep. You have to be at the airport in a couple of hours." Josh leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Yeah."
Donna woke up feeling a little disoriented. When she finally realized where she was and what had happened she looked around for Josh. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. In fact all of his belongings were gone as well. The nurse came in a few minutes later, she smiled warmly. "Your man left this for you. He said he couldn't bare to wake you up." Donna didn't correct the woman even though she felt like saying, 'he's not my man, he should be, but we're a bunch of blockheads according to my best friend, so we're just friends and co-workers.' The nurse handed her an envelope and a rose. Donna carefully opening the letter up and squeaked when something shiny rolled out of the envelope. She picked it up and her heart drummed in her ears. She opened the letter and immediately recognized Josh's handwriting.
Dearest Donnatella,
I'm sorry I didn't wake you to say good-bye, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to leave, and we've had that conversation too many times. The argument I wanted to have was that if I was your husband no one would question me staying in Germany with you until you were released for home. In fact I bet the President would've made it an executive order had I tried to come back. He would've done the same for Toby if Andi had been in your place. In fact I think the President is going to order them to get married some day soon.
What I'm saying is that months ago when we were going to try 'us' I knew exactly what I wanted. After that first kiss, it opened my eyes and suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted my future to look like.
Then when you told me that we had to stay friends and co-workers I never fully accepted it and I held this in my pocket...until today.
Today I have decided that it's time for me to really move on. You obviously have. I don't mean that to sound as jealous and jaded as it sounded, even though it's how I feel at the moment. I'm glad you were able to find happiness after all the ups and downs of what we've been through. Colin is a decent guy and whether or not you end up with him I know that you'll find someone.
I couldn't bear to take the ring back to the store and I couldn't bear to keep it, it belongs to you anyway, do what you will with it.
I think you're right that it was time for me to go. Now we can both start our full recovery and when you come home...life will be just as you left it.
For the last time, I love you Donnatella Moss.
Best Wishes for a speedy recovery, I'll be in touch.
Your dearest friend,
Josh
Donna looked over at the engagement ring shimmering in her hand and started to cry. At least now she had the time and the space to make the recoveries that she needed to make, her broken leg and her broken heart.
"Josh, there's a Donna on the phone for you."
He looked up from his desk to see Ginger standing in the doorway. He glanced at his phone. When he opened his mouth she held up her hand.
"I'm not lying for you again. It's been over a week. Talk to the poor girl," she snapped. "Line two." And she left.
Josh looked at the blinking light. He hadn't talk to her since before he left Germany. He felt guilty, mad and embarrassed about the letter he wrote. He regretted every second of giving her the ring. She should've never known about the damn ring.
He let out a frustrated sigh and picked up the phone. "Donna?"
"I thought you were going to avoid me until I came back to work."
"I haven't been avoiding you."
"Really? Then why haven't I heard from you?"
"There is a time difference, I didn't want to bother you."
"You are so full of crap."
"I'm talking to you now aren't I?"
"That's just because I told Ginger that if you aren't on the phone in one minute I was going to call Toby and see what he thought of you avoiding me, then I was going to call the President."
"You're the one that sent me back to work," he accused.
"That's right. You know what, that's fine. You call me when you're ready to talk," she snapped and hung up the phone.
"Donna, wait!"
She had already hung up. He slammed the phone down and let out a disgruntled growl. He stormed out of his office and into Toby's office. He flopped down on his couch and waited for Toby to acknowledge him.
"Ginger made you take the call didn't she?" Toby peered around the newspaper he was reading. It was Saturday and a rather slow day.
"I thought I had closure and that I would be able to start moving on, but every time Ginger tells me she's on the phone I want to hide under my desk and I can't bring myself to call her back."
"Just so you know she's ordered everyone to stop giving you updates on her health, including the nurses, you are to talk to her directly for any privileged information." Toby paused and looked up at his friend again. "And how the hell do you expect to get over her, closure or not? You know damn well it's going to be impossible and you know damn well she's going to come around at some point."
"I don't think so. I really think she's likes Mr. Photogenic. I guess I should be grateful that he isn't a damn Republican, cause those are the ones that usually end up screwing me in the end as much as they screw her."
"Oh yeah, you're moving on," Toby muttered sarcastically.
"It's been a week, Toby."
"It's been a week, you're avoiding her calls, still talking, thinking about her every second of the day and you're avoiding her. You should've stayed in Germany."
"She wouldn't let me."
"What happened in Germany, Josh, why are things so off balance all of the sudden?"
Josh hadn't told a soul about the letter or the ring. He just said that they left on awkward terms and everyone else wrote their own version of what happened.
"I didn't say good-bye to her before I left. I wrote her a letter and I left something with her."
"What did the letter say?"
"You would be interested in the writing wouldn't you?"
"I'm the communications director, it's my job to know what the message is that we're putting out there."
"I told her I loved her for the last time. I told her that it was obvious that she had moved on and that I should too."
"There's something else. That's not a big deal."
Josh let out a frustrated sigh. "In the envelope I left her the engagement ring I've been carrying around for months. I told her I couldn't bear to take it back and I didn't want to keep it, I said she could do what she wanted to do with it."
"You didn't buy an engagement ring, did you?"
Josh looked a little alarmed. She slowly shook his head. "It was my Grandmother's. It was supposed to go to Joanie but..."
Toby nodded. "You gave her an engagement ring and told her you were moving on?"
Josh suddenly felt sick to his stomach. "You do not under any circumstances have to tell me what an idiot I am, believe me I am fully aware. By the time I realized it I was stuck 30,000 feet in the air for ten hours. Otherwise I would've rectified the problem before she even knew about it."
"What happened when you talked to her today?"
"She was mad at me because I was avoiding her and I told her I wasn't and well it turns out that she's not dumb and that she knows me entirely too well and she hung up on me telling me to call her when I was ready to talk to her."
"Josh, stop treating her like she's done something wrong."
"Yeah."
"Go call her, you'll feel better."
"Yeah."
"He did what?" Sam squeaked.
"He didn't tell you?" Donna asked.
"Not hardly. I don't think he will either. He doesn't like to admit to people when he's made a mistake."
"He doesn't think it's a mistake. You don't leave your Grandmother's wedding ring with someone and tell them that they're moving on, without knowing exactly what you're doing."
"I think he felt really burned that Colin was there and then you kept telling him to go back to work. I think he felt like it was really over between the two of you and that it was time for him to move on."
"He needed to go back to work, Sam. You know that and I know that."
"I'm not arguing with you, but if the love of my life was going to be sitting I a hospital in Germany you could bet I would careless about work. In fact you're not the love of my life and I still want to be sitting in Germany, but I've managed some self-control so I think you should give Josh a little credit here."
"Yeah, except now that he's managed his closure and moved on he won't even speak to me. He won't take my calls and he doesn't call me back. He always tells someone to say hi for him. He's constantly pestering everyone about how I'm doing but he won't talk to me. That's the most annoying thing in the entire world."
"I know I'm one of the people he pesters."
"What am I supposed to do, Sam?"
"Do you love him?"
"That's a stupid question."
"No so stupid. You were dating Mr. Photogenic...I mean the photographer guy."
"Mr. Photogenic? Josh came up with that one didn't he. He damn well knows Colin's name. Why does he have to keep coming up with really annoying names for my ex-boyfriends. Dr. Freeride, Commander Wonderful, and now Mr. Photogenic? I never did that with any of his...except maybe Amy but that was pretty basic. I don't think 'Bitch' can really be construed as the same thing, do you?"
Sam chuckled. "He's jealous, Donna."
"Well he has a stupid way of showing it!" she snarled.
"Call him again."
"No!" Donna snapped. "I'm done calling him, if he wants to talk to me, he'll call."
"Okay. You're right," Sam tried to say in a soothing voice.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"How is he?"
"Donnatella Moss's room please." Josh waited while he was transferred to her room.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Donna."
There was a long silence. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon."
"How are you?"
"Physical therapy sucks."
"You always used to call me a big baby."
"Only to make you work harder. And secretly you love to prove me wrong, cause you don't get to do it very often if ever."
"Boy isn't that the truth." Josh smirked. "You sound good."
"I'm starting to feel almost human again."
"Good. I'm glad. The sooner you get better the sooner you come home."
"I didn't think you would be very excited about that. It sounded like you needed some time."
"I've had time. In fact way too much of it, so if you could just hurry your recovery along that'd be great."
"You never were one for patience."
"No."
Donna chortled lightly, "How's work?"
"It's work. It feels okay to be back here. I still wish I was there with you."
"Yeah? With the bad hospital food and all?"
"Bad hospital food and all."
"Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"Why do I have your Grandmother's wedding ring?"
Josh swallowed hard. "It was burning a hole in my pocket. It belongs to you," he whispered. "How did you know that it was my Grandmother's ring?"
"You told me about it when you and Mandy were on good terms during the campaign."
"That's right."
"So what should you be doing instead of chatting with me?"
"I've got staff in...five minutes."
She could picture him looking at his watch. "Josh, you need to go to staff now."
"Why?
"Because your watch sucks!"
"It's new."
"It was new three two ago and you still haven't replaced the battery like I told you to. Get going."
Josh flipped open his cell phone, sure enough his watch was six minutes behind.
"Debbie isn't going to let you in the meeting if you're not there in like a minute. And don't forget your folder."
"I'll call you later, okay? I promise."
"I know," she paused. "Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"Was it really the last time?"
He didn't have to ask what she was talking about. He looked over at the picture he found of him and Donna from the Ignaruation night last year. Their arms were wrapped around each other and he was in the middle of telling her to address him as 'Wild Thing' from now on. He smiled, "How could it possibly be the last time?"
"You'll be late."
"I'll call you later."
He hung up the phone and hurried it to the Oval Office. Toby, C.J., Charlie and Debbie were all chatting animatedly as he approached.
"What are we talking about?" he asked.
"That would be Team Josh," Charlie annoucned.
Josh grinned, dimples and all for the first time in days.
"I don't like the idea of leaving you here," he argued.
Donna gave him a look. "Joshua, I'm sitting in the middle of a German hospital, in you know, Germany, what do you think could possibly happen to me?"
"I'll go home when you go home," he remarked crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.
"Josh, that's weeks away. The country needs you."
"You know what, they brought Angela in once they can do it again. I'm replaceable."
"Josh," Donna growled. "I'm fine, I'm going to keep on being fine. My Mother left two days ago. I have a lot of rehab to go through and then I'll be coming home. Will you just go back to work!"
"Do you really want me to leave?"
Donna looked at him for a minute. "Not really, no," she admitted.
"Then why are you pushing?"
"Josh, you have to get back to work. You can't be sitting in your..."
"So help me god, Donna, if you say assistant," Josh warned.
Donna closed her mouth. "You have to go back to work."
Josh sat down in the chair and huffed, "I know."
"Then why are you fighting me on this?"
"Because the first time I let you out of my sight you were in a car bomb in Gaza, the second time I let you out of my sight you had a blot clot!" He didn't mean to yell, the emotions were rocking his insides and he couldn't seem to get a hold of himself.
"Josh, this isn't your fault." She held her hand out for his. He stood up and placed his hand in hers. "I get you, I get what's going on inside you and this isn't your fault."
"Donna," he whispered in protest.
"Josh, you need to go back to DC. You need to go back to your job. I talked to Leo's, he's hired you a new assistant. They need you. The country needs you. I promise I'm going to be okay."
Josh caressed her hand lightly with his own and stared at her for a long moment. "One more night and you have the nurse call me if your temperature changes one degree."
"Agreed." She nodded.
He pulled her hand up to his lips and lightly kissed the palm of her hand. "Let's see what they've brought you for breakfast."
"Josh is coming home tomorrow."
Toby peered up from his desk. "Really? Who twisted his arm?"
C.J. plopped down on his couch. "Donna, who else?"
"I wonder how the hell she managed that." Toby ran his hands over his face. "It'll be so nice to see them walking down the hall arguing about the latest inane trivia she's found. I can't wait for that." He let out a long sigh.
"Yeah." C.J. smiled faintly at the thought of the two of them bantering.
"Who did you talk to?"
"Donna, she called when Josh went to clean up a bit after breakfast."
"How does she sound?"
"She sounds good."
"Good."
"How's Andi?"
"She's good. She's glad all the funerals are taken care of and she just wants to relax."
"Huck and Molly?"
"They're good."
"Toby, we've got three more years left and I'm not sure how much more disaster and bad news I can take. Doesn't it have to get better at some point?"
"It will, we always recover."
"Yeah, but how long until the next bomb goes off?"
Josh wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up. He looked around the room, it was darker than normal, but there was still plenty of light so the nurses could move in and out of the room, see what the need to see and not disturb anyone. He stood up out of the chair and walked over to Donna's bedside.
He had told her that if he was leaving in the morning that he refused to spend his last night in the hotel room. She finally relented but told him that she didn't want to hear about his aching back.
He carefully moved a strand of hair out of her face and lightly caressed her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open and Josh retracted his hand.
"If I am going to be attuned to you, you're going to have to learn how to sleep," she murmured.
"Sorry." He managed a weak smile and looked down when he felt her hand slip into his.
"I was joking. Don't you have a sense of humor at three o'clock in the morning?"
"I want to stay," he said desperately.
"Joshua, you can't."
"I can. The country doesn't need me."
"They do. I'll be home soon enough and you can bother me at home as much as you want."
"You bet your ass, but I still don't want to go home."
"Josh, Leo was really nice to let you come here in the first place. You need to go back. They need your help. You can only take so much vacation."
"Everyone understands why I am here."
"I know, Josh, but the thing is, I'm your friend and your assistant and while I know that everyone seems to understand that, you have to go back to work."
"Yeah." Josh felt his anger stirring.
"You should get some more sleep. You have to be at the airport in a couple of hours." Josh leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Yeah."
Donna woke up feeling a little disoriented. When she finally realized where she was and what had happened she looked around for Josh. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. In fact all of his belongings were gone as well. The nurse came in a few minutes later, she smiled warmly. "Your man left this for you. He said he couldn't bare to wake you up." Donna didn't correct the woman even though she felt like saying, 'he's not my man, he should be, but we're a bunch of blockheads according to my best friend, so we're just friends and co-workers.' The nurse handed her an envelope and a rose. Donna carefully opening the letter up and squeaked when something shiny rolled out of the envelope. She picked it up and her heart drummed in her ears. She opened the letter and immediately recognized Josh's handwriting.
Dearest Donnatella,
I'm sorry I didn't wake you to say good-bye, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to leave, and we've had that conversation too many times. The argument I wanted to have was that if I was your husband no one would question me staying in Germany with you until you were released for home. In fact I bet the President would've made it an executive order had I tried to come back. He would've done the same for Toby if Andi had been in your place. In fact I think the President is going to order them to get married some day soon.
What I'm saying is that months ago when we were going to try 'us' I knew exactly what I wanted. After that first kiss, it opened my eyes and suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted my future to look like.
Then when you told me that we had to stay friends and co-workers I never fully accepted it and I held this in my pocket...until today.
Today I have decided that it's time for me to really move on. You obviously have. I don't mean that to sound as jealous and jaded as it sounded, even though it's how I feel at the moment. I'm glad you were able to find happiness after all the ups and downs of what we've been through. Colin is a decent guy and whether or not you end up with him I know that you'll find someone.
I couldn't bear to take the ring back to the store and I couldn't bear to keep it, it belongs to you anyway, do what you will with it.
I think you're right that it was time for me to go. Now we can both start our full recovery and when you come home...life will be just as you left it.
For the last time, I love you Donnatella Moss.
Best Wishes for a speedy recovery, I'll be in touch.
Your dearest friend,
Josh
Donna looked over at the engagement ring shimmering in her hand and started to cry. At least now she had the time and the space to make the recoveries that she needed to make, her broken leg and her broken heart.
"Josh, there's a Donna on the phone for you."
He looked up from his desk to see Ginger standing in the doorway. He glanced at his phone. When he opened his mouth she held up her hand.
"I'm not lying for you again. It's been over a week. Talk to the poor girl," she snapped. "Line two." And she left.
Josh looked at the blinking light. He hadn't talk to her since before he left Germany. He felt guilty, mad and embarrassed about the letter he wrote. He regretted every second of giving her the ring. She should've never known about the damn ring.
He let out a frustrated sigh and picked up the phone. "Donna?"
"I thought you were going to avoid me until I came back to work."
"I haven't been avoiding you."
"Really? Then why haven't I heard from you?"
"There is a time difference, I didn't want to bother you."
"You are so full of crap."
"I'm talking to you now aren't I?"
"That's just because I told Ginger that if you aren't on the phone in one minute I was going to call Toby and see what he thought of you avoiding me, then I was going to call the President."
"You're the one that sent me back to work," he accused.
"That's right. You know what, that's fine. You call me when you're ready to talk," she snapped and hung up the phone.
"Donna, wait!"
She had already hung up. He slammed the phone down and let out a disgruntled growl. He stormed out of his office and into Toby's office. He flopped down on his couch and waited for Toby to acknowledge him.
"Ginger made you take the call didn't she?" Toby peered around the newspaper he was reading. It was Saturday and a rather slow day.
"I thought I had closure and that I would be able to start moving on, but every time Ginger tells me she's on the phone I want to hide under my desk and I can't bring myself to call her back."
"Just so you know she's ordered everyone to stop giving you updates on her health, including the nurses, you are to talk to her directly for any privileged information." Toby paused and looked up at his friend again. "And how the hell do you expect to get over her, closure or not? You know damn well it's going to be impossible and you know damn well she's going to come around at some point."
"I don't think so. I really think she's likes Mr. Photogenic. I guess I should be grateful that he isn't a damn Republican, cause those are the ones that usually end up screwing me in the end as much as they screw her."
"Oh yeah, you're moving on," Toby muttered sarcastically.
"It's been a week, Toby."
"It's been a week, you're avoiding her calls, still talking, thinking about her every second of the day and you're avoiding her. You should've stayed in Germany."
"She wouldn't let me."
"What happened in Germany, Josh, why are things so off balance all of the sudden?"
Josh hadn't told a soul about the letter or the ring. He just said that they left on awkward terms and everyone else wrote their own version of what happened.
"I didn't say good-bye to her before I left. I wrote her a letter and I left something with her."
"What did the letter say?"
"You would be interested in the writing wouldn't you?"
"I'm the communications director, it's my job to know what the message is that we're putting out there."
"I told her I loved her for the last time. I told her that it was obvious that she had moved on and that I should too."
"There's something else. That's not a big deal."
Josh let out a frustrated sigh. "In the envelope I left her the engagement ring I've been carrying around for months. I told her I couldn't bear to take it back and I didn't want to keep it, I said she could do what she wanted to do with it."
"You didn't buy an engagement ring, did you?"
Josh looked a little alarmed. She slowly shook his head. "It was my Grandmother's. It was supposed to go to Joanie but..."
Toby nodded. "You gave her an engagement ring and told her you were moving on?"
Josh suddenly felt sick to his stomach. "You do not under any circumstances have to tell me what an idiot I am, believe me I am fully aware. By the time I realized it I was stuck 30,000 feet in the air for ten hours. Otherwise I would've rectified the problem before she even knew about it."
"What happened when you talked to her today?"
"She was mad at me because I was avoiding her and I told her I wasn't and well it turns out that she's not dumb and that she knows me entirely too well and she hung up on me telling me to call her when I was ready to talk to her."
"Josh, stop treating her like she's done something wrong."
"Yeah."
"Go call her, you'll feel better."
"Yeah."
"He did what?" Sam squeaked.
"He didn't tell you?" Donna asked.
"Not hardly. I don't think he will either. He doesn't like to admit to people when he's made a mistake."
"He doesn't think it's a mistake. You don't leave your Grandmother's wedding ring with someone and tell them that they're moving on, without knowing exactly what you're doing."
"I think he felt really burned that Colin was there and then you kept telling him to go back to work. I think he felt like it was really over between the two of you and that it was time for him to move on."
"He needed to go back to work, Sam. You know that and I know that."
"I'm not arguing with you, but if the love of my life was going to be sitting I a hospital in Germany you could bet I would careless about work. In fact you're not the love of my life and I still want to be sitting in Germany, but I've managed some self-control so I think you should give Josh a little credit here."
"Yeah, except now that he's managed his closure and moved on he won't even speak to me. He won't take my calls and he doesn't call me back. He always tells someone to say hi for him. He's constantly pestering everyone about how I'm doing but he won't talk to me. That's the most annoying thing in the entire world."
"I know I'm one of the people he pesters."
"What am I supposed to do, Sam?"
"Do you love him?"
"That's a stupid question."
"No so stupid. You were dating Mr. Photogenic...I mean the photographer guy."
"Mr. Photogenic? Josh came up with that one didn't he. He damn well knows Colin's name. Why does he have to keep coming up with really annoying names for my ex-boyfriends. Dr. Freeride, Commander Wonderful, and now Mr. Photogenic? I never did that with any of his...except maybe Amy but that was pretty basic. I don't think 'Bitch' can really be construed as the same thing, do you?"
Sam chuckled. "He's jealous, Donna."
"Well he has a stupid way of showing it!" she snarled.
"Call him again."
"No!" Donna snapped. "I'm done calling him, if he wants to talk to me, he'll call."
"Okay. You're right," Sam tried to say in a soothing voice.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"How is he?"
"Donnatella Moss's room please." Josh waited while he was transferred to her room.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Donna."
There was a long silence. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon."
"How are you?"
"Physical therapy sucks."
"You always used to call me a big baby."
"Only to make you work harder. And secretly you love to prove me wrong, cause you don't get to do it very often if ever."
"Boy isn't that the truth." Josh smirked. "You sound good."
"I'm starting to feel almost human again."
"Good. I'm glad. The sooner you get better the sooner you come home."
"I didn't think you would be very excited about that. It sounded like you needed some time."
"I've had time. In fact way too much of it, so if you could just hurry your recovery along that'd be great."
"You never were one for patience."
"No."
Donna chortled lightly, "How's work?"
"It's work. It feels okay to be back here. I still wish I was there with you."
"Yeah? With the bad hospital food and all?"
"Bad hospital food and all."
"Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"Why do I have your Grandmother's wedding ring?"
Josh swallowed hard. "It was burning a hole in my pocket. It belongs to you," he whispered. "How did you know that it was my Grandmother's ring?"
"You told me about it when you and Mandy were on good terms during the campaign."
"That's right."
"So what should you be doing instead of chatting with me?"
"I've got staff in...five minutes."
She could picture him looking at his watch. "Josh, you need to go to staff now."
"Why?
"Because your watch sucks!"
"It's new."
"It was new three two ago and you still haven't replaced the battery like I told you to. Get going."
Josh flipped open his cell phone, sure enough his watch was six minutes behind.
"Debbie isn't going to let you in the meeting if you're not there in like a minute. And don't forget your folder."
"I'll call you later, okay? I promise."
"I know," she paused. "Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"Was it really the last time?"
He didn't have to ask what she was talking about. He looked over at the picture he found of him and Donna from the Ignaruation night last year. Their arms were wrapped around each other and he was in the middle of telling her to address him as 'Wild Thing' from now on. He smiled, "How could it possibly be the last time?"
"You'll be late."
"I'll call you later."
He hung up the phone and hurried it to the Oval Office. Toby, C.J., Charlie and Debbie were all chatting animatedly as he approached.
"What are we talking about?" he asked.
"That would be Team Josh," Charlie annoucned.
Josh grinned, dimples and all for the first time in days.