Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, if they did, this would have happened a long time ago.
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Characters: Josh, Donna, and Stanley Keyworth
Rating: PG-13
Timeframe: This is how I would have ended Evidence of Things Not Seen
Beta: Special thanks to Caitlin and Becc for beta reading this thing for me. The J/D fanfic group is wonderful. When I sent up a distressed call for help doing the beta for Conversation, I got an overwhelming response, thanks to everyone; you are a very generous group.
A Conversation
Ch 1 ...With Stanley
By
Lattelady
Donna Moss sat at her boss's desk. His office was dark except for a lamp that created a pool of light on the folders stacked around her. The West Wing was still in lockdown mode due to shots that had been fired at the White House 45 minutes earlier.
She hoped that if she stayed in the peace and quiet of Josh's office long enough she might be able to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but so far it wasn't working. She couldn't let go of the moment when she realized that they were once again under attack, and she was separated from the man who meant everything to her. Common sense told her to go back to her cubical and get to work. There were plenty of things she could be doing while waiting for the all-clear from the Secret Service, but she was frozen in place, as the dim voices of reason were slowly being drowned out by panic.
Her hand reached for the phone for the third time in as many minutes, but this time she didn't pull back. This time she felt the cool plastic of the receiver against her fingers as she gripped it until her knuckles turned white. "It's for his own good," she rationalized as she quickly dialed the number in San Francisco she'd hoped to never need to call again.
"Hello," a young female voice answered.
"I'd like to speak to Dr. Stanley Keyworth."
"Daddy…there's a lady on the phone for you." Donna heard the noises on the other end of the line, family noises; a woman's laughter, a child talking, water running and dishes being washed. Noises that were safe and normal, nothing like the ones that echoed through her head.
"Dr. Keyworth speaking." As the door to his study closed, he was surrounded by the quiet necessary to do his job.
"Stanley, it's Donna Moss." She pushed against the desk with her elbow, causing the large chair where she was seated, to turn until she faced the darkened window behind her. The subtle maneuver cut her off from the light, making her call easier, giving it the illusion of privacy.
"Is everything all right?" He doubted she'd be calling at almost midnight DC time if it was, but, as a psychiatrist, he knew it was more helpful to be the one asking the questions.
"Ahhh…."
"Donna what happened?"
"We were shot at tonight." She pulled her long legs up under her and curled tightly against the back of Josh's chair, while breathing deeply to catch lingering traces of aftershave that clung to the scratchy material under her cheek.
"We?"
"The White House, the press room windows, actually." As she talked she could see it happening as it must have occurred. "I was in the Mess, but I heard the shots, and I think CJ screamed….Stanley,this time I…heard…the…shots!"
"Is everyone all right?" He probed past the anxiety that laced her words to hear what she was really saying.
"No one was hurt." Donna licked her lips, unable to keep her mind focused. "Josh is safe." A shudder ran through her body as she remembered another night when shots had been fired and he hadn't been safe.
"Josh..?" Dr. Keyworth nodded to himself. He refused to let himself be side-tracked by her distress and honed in on what she wasn't telling him. "Where is Josh now?"
"What?" She was hearing his words, but they didn't make any sense.
"Where is Josh, and more importantly, where are you?" His tone was calm and commanding as if he was talking to a patient, and from the sound of things he just might be. Donna was about to unravel, something that was highly out of character. Even in the conversations they'd had when he'd first been called in and diagnosed Josh Lyman with PTSD, she had spoken with strength and conviction.
"He's in a meeting. I tried to get him to call you, but he said he was all right." Suddenly words poured out. "He said… but I don't think…I mean someone shot at us…it's like before."
"Donna, are you alone?" The doctor cut off her ramble in an attempt to get her to focus.
"What…?" What was he talking about, and why wasn't he concerned about Josh. Josh had been the one shot three years ago; he'd been the one who had nightmares, and post traumatic stress disorder. "What are you talking about, Stanley?"
"I'm talking about you." He shook his head, unable to believe that he could have missed the signs before this. The number of casualties from that night in Rosslyn just increased by one.
"Me…" She shook her head to deny the fear that was surrounding her. "There's no reason…"
"You didn't answer my question. Where are you and are you alone?"
"I'm alone in Josh's office. I'm going to try and get him to call you when he's through with his meeting…"
"Donna, I can deal with Josh later, now we need to talk about you." Stanley had seen the Deputy Chief Of Staff three weeks earlier for a regular six-month visit. He had given Lyman a clean bill of mental health and hadn't bothered to schedule another appointment. The doctor had told the younger man to contact him if his nightmares increased in frequency or if there were any new problems, but in his professional opinion Josh no longer needed regular visits from the American Trauma Victims Association.
"Me, why me? I'm all right, I'm fine. No one ever shot me. No one ever…my heart is just fine!"
"That's an unusual way to put it." He let her words play through his head before repeating them to her. "You said 'my heart is just fine.' Why would you use those words?"
"Because…" Donna placed her free hand over her chest and could feel the pounding beats under her palm; they corresponded to the thumping in her ears. "Stanley this is ridiculous, I called about Josh."
"I'm sure you thought you did." He shook his head at the pain he was hearing in her voice.
"What are you talking about?" She gasped and pressed deeper into her chair
"I think when that bullet hit Josh Lyman's pulmonary artery and almost killed him it tore a gaping hole in your heart that no amount of surgery could repair. Have you ever talked about that night with anyone?"
"No…I couldn't…I was needed…No." She cleared her throat and fought to get a tight grip on the tenuous thread that was holding her together. "There was no need, I wasn't the one hurt."
"Weren't you?"
"Of course not, I wasn't even there when it happened!"
"But you were still hurt and I think that's why you called me. You need to talk, you're bursting at the seams to talk to someone and you know I'll understand." He held his breath as he heard sobs on the other end of the line. Confrontations were always done best in person. If she hung up on him, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get her to open up again.
"I can't do this right now, Josh might…." She rubbed the heel of her hand over wet cheeks, but new tears fell faster than she could wipe them away.
"Josh might what? Fall apart, or discover how much you really care about him?" He heard her gasp as his statement hit home. "Listen to me, Donna, and listen carefully. He is much stronger than you give him credit for, and he has you to thank for a lot of that strength. You were there for him when he was coming apart. You held him together until he was strong enough to deal with things on his own. He's a smart man. Don't you think he knows...?"
"You mean he's cured?" She cut him off quickly before he could say any more. "He'll be normal again. Oh thank God."
"As much as he's ever going to be. Somehow I can't picture Josh Lyman ever being normal." Stanley shook his head; Donna Moss was almost as good as her boss at misdirection. "You didn't let me finish."
"I…what more is there to say?" Her stomach churned and she gripped the arm of her chair with all her might.
"There's a lot to say and you need to say it, or you'd have never made this phone call. I think you've let your fears from the night at Rosslyn blind you to a number of things. Josh got the help he needed; now you need to do the same. And don't think for one moment he doesn't already know how you feel about him. It's what kept him together when things were at their worst."
"Why is this happening now?" Donna refused to listen to the last part of that statement, her head pounded from crying and she was confused. She didn't understand what was happening to her and didn't like it one bit. "I've been fine."
"Yes you have been, but something has happened tonight that's sent you spinning out of control."
"Well go figure; we were shot at tonight, Stanley!" Her anger erupted with an urge to throw something until she remembered a Christmas Eve, and a man with a cut hand, and a broken spirit. "Oh God, no," she gasped. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it." The words came between jagged sobs and she hoped he could hear what she was saying, three thousand miles away.
"Shhhh Donna, it's okay," Dr. Keyworth tried to sooth the crying woman.
"No…no, it…it's not." She fought to control her voice enough to talk.
"Concentrate on breathing." He listened carefully as she forced herself to calm down. "You still with me?"
"Yes, I'm still here." She blinked quickly to clear her mind of the image of her body dangling over the side of a cliff, the tight hold she had on the phone all that was keeping her from falling. "Am I like Josh that Christmas?"
"No, I don't believe so. You just have some things to work through." Stanley smiled and relaxed back in his chair. She had stopped fighting him. "The average person usually doesn't react well to gun fire, especially if someone they know or care about has been injured by it. More happened tonight than you're telling me, add that to everything you've kept bottled up inside you since Rosslyn and this is the result."
Josh Lyman stretched and rolled his shoulders as he strutted through the darkened bullpen. When he rounded a corner he saw a dim light through his office door and could pick up the sound of a familiar voice, though he couldn't make out what she was saying. 'Donna.' He smiled as he remembered how worried she'd been about him earlier. He supposed he was going to have to call Stanley Keyworth or she'd hound him until he did.
He stopped for a moment a few feet from his door and took his emotional temperature. It was something Stanley had taught him to do. A quick assessment of what he was really feeling. Much to his surprise he was all right. There'd been a moment back there when he'd first learned about the shots being fired that something had rumbled through his head, but it hadn't been followed by the strange taste in his mouth that always preceded an episode. 'Yeah, all right,' he grinned. 'I finally kicked this thing. I was pretty sure I had, but tonight was the test, and I passed it. Oh yeah, I'm da man.'
He would have given someone a high-five, if there'd been anyone around to share the moment with, then he remembered there was and took a step closer to his office. That was when Donna's words began to sink in. She was upset, and it sounded as if she were crying. He peeked around the corner and saw her reflection in the window and it made him freeze in place. She was curled in his chair with the phone cradled to her ear. Her long blonde hair was a curtain that hid her face, but he was sure that if he could see her eyes, they would be red and swollen.
He was torn between quietly slipping away to give her the privacy she deserved or…or what…doing what he really wanted to do, but what was that? He squinted as he pictured himself going to her and holding her until she was all cried out. Her body would be soft and supple against his as they moved together in the shadows erasing all the hurts they'd caused each other in the last two years. Then tomorrow, he'd have to find the gomer who was causing her tears and beat him into a bloody pulp. It didn't surprise him when a surge of joy and desire pumped through his veins.
"Help me," the anguish in Donna's voice brought him out of his reverie and a step closer to the door. "I'll answer any questions you want, just help me figure this out, Stanley."
When he realized who she was talking to, he pulled back into the dark bullpen, filled with anger and doubt. She'd called his psychiatrist behind his back. How could she do that? Didn't she realize he was better? Didn't she realize that he was strong enough to stand on his own two feet and fight his own battles and hers too? Hadn't he proven that to her with the Cliff Calley incident. He was about to walk away in defeat when she began talking again.
"My memory of that night is sketchy. I know I started to watch the Town Hall Meeting on TV, but was so tired from all the work we'd done in preparation, that I couldn't keep my eyes open. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember is an announcement that shots had been fired at the President and his party while they were leaving the Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia."
Josh rocked back on his feet. Maybe he wasn't as cured as he'd thought he'd been? Donna was talking about the night he'd been shot. It was something they'd never discussed before. He knew if they had, they would have been unable to fool themselves any longer. What he didn't understand, at the moment, was why it had been so important to lie, even to themselves, because the lie, once created, had turned into a sorry excuse for truth, when they both found other people to care about.
There he stood, late on a Friday night, eavesdropping on a private conversation, needing to hear words he should have forced her to say years ago, words that could have kept her free from the pain she was going through now. In many ways it was his fault. It was a conversation he knew he should have initiated. If he had, he would have said the things he'd wanted to say from the moment he'd handed a tall slim blonde woman his Bartlet for America identification tag.
As she talked Donna could picture that night three years earlier. It had been May and unusually cool for that time of the year. She remembered the worn feeling of the upholstery of her favorite chair and the feel of the cool plastic of the remote control clutched in one hand and her cell phone in the other. She had been drifting half awake and half asleep when the overly loud voice of the announcer brought her suddenly to her feet.
"What happened next?" Stanley coached.
"I don't remember getting to George Washington University Hospital, but I know I must have driven. Then I had to look around until I found an agent who knew me, to let me in." She leaned back against her chair, her eyes closed, completely oblivious to the man standing and listening at his office door.
"How did you find out about Josh?" Stanley had heard the story from a number of the staffers, but he needed to hear Donna's perspective.
"It was Toby." Her tears began again, but she ignored them, too lost in the past to care. "I didn't hear him at first. No, that isn't exactly right, I heard him, but couldn't hold onto the memory of what had been said from one word to the next. It was like they bounced off of me and were lost somewhere in the corners of the room."
"You were in shock." The doctor could picture the waiting area; he's waited there himself on one occasion and knew it couldn't have been easy.
"Once I was able to string it all together, I couldn't hear or think about anything else. I knew there were people waiting with me, but it's all very vague. Sam patted my arm, but I think he left. Mrs. Landingham held my hand for a while. Toby was in and out. Mrs. Bartlet made me get up and…and…walk? Oh God no!" She gasped and buried her face in her free hand.
"What, what about Mrs. Bartlet?" Stanley listened to her cry, and then tried again. "Donna talk to me. Tell me about the walk you took with the First Lady."
She threw her head back and gripped the arm of the chair. "Dr. Bartlet thought it'd help me if I saw Josh when he was in surgery. We were in a hospital and after all it's her environment. Sometimes she forgets that doctors have a unique view of the world." Donna starred off into space, seeing clearly the corridors she'd walked that long night three years ago.
Josh heard her quiet words from the door and leaned his head against the frame. He'd never realized she'd suffered so badly that night.
"There's a small observation window in the operating room. Someone told me later that Mrs. Bartlet had stood watch from there most of the time the President was in surgery. She's a thoracic surgeon. I think it probably gave her an illusion of control to be there. Anyway, it had been a help to her, and she thought it would help me, if I saw Josh. She didn't realize….she didn't know…I mean after all you really can't see much. Everything is covered in drapes...but…but…the machines and the tubes."
"Stop it Donna. Josh is no longer in that room. He's safe! He's in a meeting not vary far away from you, remember?" Stanley fought her for control, but it was a hard thing to gauge when he only had her voice to go by. "Take a deep breath and pull back. That's right; now tell me what you saw."
"It wasn't so much what I saw that night. A few weeks earlier, I'd seen a special on PBS about cardiac by-pass surgery." Her voice was hoarse from crying and it hurt to talk, but she had to get it out. "Did you know that when a patient is on by-pass they stop his heart? That's what the word means, the blood by-passes the heart and lungs and a machine does their job."
"Somehow you knew that Josh was on by-pass?" He shook his head at the careless error that someone had made by underestimating her intelligence.
"Yes." Then Donna went on as if she hadn't been interrupted. "Blood flow doesn't get to the heart or lungs. I don't just mean the kind of flow that is normal when those organs are doing the jobs they were designed to do, but the kind that carries oxygen to their cells to keep them alive. Because of that, the room is cooled. It gets very cold in the operating room when on by-pass." She could see it as if it were happening all over again. "I reached up and touched the window. I did it to be closer to Josh, but the glass was freezing, almost like ice. That's when I knew…it became very real to me…that his heart wasn't beating. They had stopped his heart and I might never know the rhythm of it again."
"Did you tell that to Dr. Bartlet?" Stanley was a doctor and though he hadn't given any real thought to the pathophysiology of by-pass surgery, he was familiar with the process.
"No, I didn't need to, I think she understood, because I was gripping the window for support when I felt her put her arms around me and she guided me to a chair. I wanted to cry so badly, but I couldn't, I couldn't let Josh down by crying all over the First Lady. Then the strangest thing happened, she pulled my head onto her shoulder and rocked me back and forth, like I was a child. Later she walked me to the surgical waiting area, and sat with me for the longest time. After that, there was always someone sitting beside me."
"What did you feel while all this was happening?"
"I didn't feel anything." Donna squirmed in the chair and felt a knot tighten around her chest as tears filled her eyes again. "I haven't cried about that night, or about what happened the following Christmas, until tonight."
"Why do you suppose that is?"
"I wouldn't let myself. Everytime I felt tears welling up in my eyes, I'd refuse to acknowledge them." The answer jumped out at her, but she didn't want to look too much deeper. "I told myself that I couldn't, because if I did, then I wouldn't be any use to Josh, and I'd promised him that I could be useful." She remembered her words from long ago.
"So you buried everything you were feeling and took care of him all those months. Why was that?" Stanley kept digging; he could feel the answer was very close. He'd seen it all the times he'd visited in Washington, and was surprised that Donna hadn't. He wasn't sure how it tied in with tonight, but would bet his practice that something had happened between Donna and Josh either just prior to, or just after, the shooting that caused all her emotions to blow up in her face.
"Because…because…because I'm his assistant." She nodded quickly, accepting the easy answer. "I'm his assistant and I do things like that for him…I'm useful, like I said."
"Donna, I know you too well to accept that answer. Now tell me, what was the real reason?" He pushed harder in an attempt to make her face her feelings.
"He means everything to me!" The words tore out of her in one quick breath. It caught her by surprise at how easy it was to be honest when she'd dug through layers of self-deceit, so she kept on going. "But I messed it up badly. I've hurt him and could have destroyed his career. Oh God, Stanley I've made a terrible mess. And tonight, tonight…"
"What about tonight? What happened in addition to the shooting?" Stanley rubbed his eyes, but kept leaning on her for the truth. "What happened tonight that brought all this out into the open."
"I tried to push him away, again. I tried to hide my feelings from him." She rocked back and forth in the chair, her eyes shut tightly as she tried to remember the exact words she'd used about the young attorney Josh had been interviewing. "I've done it twice before, dangled men in front of him, and each time it ended in disaster. Tonight was no different, tonight there were shots fired at the White House."
"Back up, I'm not following you."
"I told Josh how attractive the man he was going to interview was. I tried to make it sound like our usual banter, but then, oh God, I let the truth slip out. The words just came out of my mouth and I couldn't pull them back. I tried to turn it into a joke, but I'm not sure it worked."
"What did you tell him? What did you say to Josh?"
"I told him…I told him that he was handsome and desirable," she whispered, remembering their conversation outside of the Roosevelt Room. "I tried to make it sound funny, but instead of laughing it off he got an odd look on his face and said my sense of humor was 'a bit of a high-wire act.' He knew, I could tell he knew, but it hurt him. Minutes later we were in lockdown mode."
"What was it that you think Josh knew?" He had a pretty good idea, but he needed to hear Donna say it.
"That I love him." The whispered words slipped out as she covered her eyes with her hand and rested her elbow on the arm of the chair. Tears rolled unchecked between her fingers. "And that I hid behind two men to keep him from finding out." Suddenly she began to laugh, the sound was harsh and bitter, leaving no doubt in Stanley's mind that there was nothing funny about the situation. "With one of them, Josh put himself in danger by using his political power to keep me out of trouble. The other one was my own foolishness. Josh was there for me both times, once with his strength and intellect, then a year and a half later with kindness and snowballs. But each time I did a little more damage to his already scarred heart."
"You need to tell him." During his many visits to the White House, over the last few years, he'd heard and seen many things. Both Donna and Josh had a lot to clear up between them if they were going to repair the damage that had been started with a sniper's bullet on that cool night in May. "You need to tell him all of it and he has some things he should say to you, too."
"I can't. I can't tell him any of this." She gasped into the phone. "It would be…He can't ever find out."
"I already knew a lot of it, Donna." Josh Lyman walked into the room and around his desk until he was standing in front of her. "I wish I'd realized sooner how hard that night was on you."
"Josh!" She cried out and untangled her legs from beneath her.
He put his hand on her shoulder to keep her in place and grabbed the phone as it fell from her hand. "Hey, Stanley, it's been quite a night. Is this another example of two and two equaling a bushel of potatoes?"
"You got it." He smiled as he remembered making that statement to Josh when he was helping him understand the relationship between Christmas music and sirens. "How're you doing?"
"Good." He paused a moment to be sure he was telling the truth. "Better than I'd have thought under the circumstances, and yourself?"
"Fine, thanks. How's Donna holding up?"
"She's kind of a mess, but I think we're going to be okay on this end." Her quiet sobbing was breaking his heart, so he knelt and pulled her head onto his shoulder as he wrapped his free arm around her.
"You need to get her to bed."
"I've been working on it since Christmas, but she just doesn't seem to get the message." It was the truth, and he understood what Stanley was really saying, but he took great delight in trying to mess with the man's head, anyway.
"Josh, I meant to sleep!" The doctor rolled his eyes, and reasserted his assessment of half an hour ago, 'there was never going to be anything completely normal about Josh Lyman.'
"I know. I was just having a little fun with you." He turned away from the phone and nuzzled the blonde head so close to his. "We'll call you in the morning, but not too early."
"Take good care of her." Stanley Keyworth figured it was about time those two people had something break their way. "You two have a lot to talk about."
"We sure do, and thanks for what you did tonight. I owe you one."
"We'll worry about that later, you've got more important things to do."
"Don't I know it." Josh smiled as he dropped the phone into its cradle on his desk.
"How long were you standing there listening?" Donna kept her face buried against his neck, unable to look him in the eyes.
"From my perspective not nearly long enough." He ran his hands over her back to try and calm her shuddering. "I'm going to take you home and you're going to get some sleep. We'll finish this conversation in the morning."
"No." She pushed against his shoulders trying to pull free. "How could you eavesdrop on me like that?"
"Donna." He stood pulling her to her feet with him. One of his arms was securely wrapped around her to keep her body close to his. "Look at me." He commanded and when she wouldn't comply, gently lifted her chin. He'd waited a long time to say what he was going to say and he needed to see her face when he did. "I've…"
"Let me go." She tried to twist away in embarrassment. "This isn't fair, you can't just…"
Exasperated, he could think of only one way to get her to quiet down. He leaned in and kissed her. He'd only planned on a little peck on the lips, they were both too tired for more than that, but once he started kissing her, he didn't want to stop. When she moaned and molded her body closer to his, his tongue moved against her lips and he rocked his hips against hers. They were seconds away from being swept away in a moment of passion, but the way he felt about her didn't leave room for anything momentary. It took all his will-power, but he eased up on the kiss and pulled back from her. Now was not the time, if he did it right, they'd have all the time in the world.
"Donnatella," he whispered as he ran one hand through her hair and the other down her arm to slide his fingers between hers. He raised their hands to press her palm against his heart. "It beats for you, Donnatella, and because of you, no one else. I love you."
"Joshua." Her hand shook under his as she felt the warmth of his chest radiate through his shirt and the steady rhythm of his mended heart. "I…" When words didn't seem enough, she moved their joined hands aside and kissed where they had been resting.
"Come on let's get you out of here, I see the water works are about to start again." He grinned as he supported her arm while she slid into her shoes, then he reached over and turn out his office light.
They were too wrapped up in each other to notice the slim older man, in a neatly pressed double-breasted suit, watching them from across the bullpen. He saluted them with a glass of club soda over ice. "It's about damn time!"
TO BE CONTINUED
