Don't own them. NBC, WB, John Wells and Aaron Sorkin do. Don't sue.
"C.J. Cregg, step away from the bouquet!"
Grinning, C.J. turned around. "Come on, Donna, I think red and green would be perfect!"
Donna walked over to the table and wrinkled her nose. "The green is spray-painted on."
"Guess these are Christmas leftovers." C.J. walked over to another table in the florist shop. They had been there for over an hour and C.J. was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded. "What about this? This is magnolia, ranunculus, orchid and lisianthus."
"Isn't that a Simon and Garfunkel song?" Donna put her hand on her forehead. C.J. wondered if Donna was feeling a bit dizzy as well. "It'll go well with the bridesmaid gowns, but it seems a bit... much. I don't think you'd see me over the flowers."
"Here we go... poinsettia, rose and pine... perfect for the right after Christmas wedding." C.J. looked down at the table. "And it's half-off."
Donna pursed her lips at the bouquet. She sighed deeply. "I hate this, C.J. I'm hating planning this wedding. Aren't most women supposed to be excited about wedding plans? Don't they stay up nights hoping the cummerbunds match the carpet of the church? Am I that unusual that I wish I was looking at media markets or gearing up to battle a rider on a bill?"
Honestly, C.J. hated it, too. She loved doing this for Donna and Josh, she loved spending the free time with Donna. The ring shopping with both of them had been fun, the bridesmaid dresses had been quick and planning the menu for the reception had induced hunger pains, but the flowers had been boring. Boring, and C.J. was beginning to feel her sinuses clog. She was hankering for a milk shake or fries or that trout with lemon herb butter from the reception menu.
She put a comforting hand on Donna's shoulder. "I don't think its that unusual. I think that you are a modern, independent woman and a modern, independent woman wouldn't necessarily swoon over all that crap. They make it overwhelming so that women who have doubt about who they are marrying are too busy to think about it. You have no doubt, so all of this is annoying."
"We really, really should have eloped, C.J."
C.J. smiled. "Yeah, but President Bartlet and Leo want to be there. Your parents and his mother want to be there."
"President Barlet had the fanciest private jet in the world. He would've flown to Vegas for us. Could've picked people up along the way."
"The taxpayers probably wouldn't have been so thrilled."
Donna smiled the first smile C.J. had seen in the hour at the florist shop. "No, probably not."
C.J. began to lead Donna out of the allergy attack-inducing store. They could find the bouquet another day. "Besides, that's what I'm here for. These are all maid of honor-type duties. That includes telling the stressed-out bride-to-be to take a break."
Once they were outside, C.J. steered Donna towards a nearby coffee shop. They needed massive amounts of fortification. There were all the flower arrangements, guest lists (and accompanying that, secret service arrangements), types of invitations, the photographer, the band, the cake... It was never-ending. Invading Kundu didn't take this much work.
The women sat down with steaming cups and carefully discarded their winter wear. Donna rubbed her hands together before she took a sip. "Mmmm... coffee. I've missed it."
C.J.'s head perked up as she sipped. "You missed it? You were trying to work on a national campaign without caffeine?"
"Well..." Donna looked sadly at her half-empty sugar packet, then darted her head around the room. "Um..."
The wheels in C.J.'s head spun quickly. "You don't... you don't have to tell me."
"No, it's okay," Donna took a long sip. "We thought I was, but it turned out that I wasn't."
"Was..."
"Pregnant."
"Oh..." The wheels were flying off the wagon in C.J.'s mind as she pictured Josh, with the longer hair of yore, bouncing around the bullpen with a baby his shoulder. Of course, in her fantasy, he was still screaming curses at Republicans and traitorous Democrats. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine," Donna pushed her hair back away from her face. "I'm sort of relived that I wasn't. I didn't want it to overshadow the wedding. I don't want anyone snarking that its a shotgun-type thing."
"But the two of you want kids..."
"Yeah, we do." Donna took another sip. C.J. could tell she was enjoying it immensely. "But there's no great rush. When it happens, it happens."
"How'd he take it?" C.J. asked.
Donna sighed. "Well. I mean, he took the idea of me being pregnant well. We were both excited. I took a home pregnancy test and everything."
"False positive, obviously."
"Yeah, these things happen." Donna's eyes looked dark to C.J. C.J. tried to put herself in the younger woman's shoes. Would she really be as blasé about this as Donna was being? Maybe. They still had plenty of time. They could focus on the wedding instead of the wedding and a baby.
Still, C.J. felt sad for them for some reason. The picture of the bouncy politician with the bouncy baby wouldn't leave her head.
"How long did you think you were..."
"Two months."
"Are you sure you're okay with other..."
"Yeah, I went to the doctor and everything. I'm fine." She took another long sip of coffee and it occurred to C.J. that she was inhaling the coffee down at an alarming rate. Donna's tongue and throat must have been scalded by now.
They sat in silence for a few moments and sipped coffee. C.J. recognized one of her former deputies and waved quickly as the young man went to buy a latte. A jaunty wave that said, don't come over here. She knew that Donna was hiding something, whether it be an emotion or a fact. She knew her, knew when she was uncomfortable...
C.J. couldn't rewind time. It was never in her power. They didn't give instructions for that when you became Chief of Staff. Her and Donna's relationship had completely recovered since that damn shutdown, but if C.J. could just hop into a DeLorean and change that night, she would. She would also make sure that Donna never got on that plane to Gaza and that Josh never went to Rosslyn.
Make sure Simon never left to buy the damn flowers. Tell Mrs. Landingham to drive the other way. Give Leo salads everyday for lunch. The list was long and for all the awful death and senseless pain, the shutdown conversation was at the top. C.J. didn't know why.
"C.J..." Donna's voice sounded small. "I need... Okay, I haven't been exactly truthful."
C.J. closed her eyes. Something was wrong with Donna and now she had a new destination for the DeLorean. Maybe time travel couldn't cure whatever disease she had, but she could travel to the beginning and drag Donna to a doctor.
Taking a deep breath, C.J. realized she was leaping too far. Maybe Donna wasn't being exactly truthful about the type of caviar she wanted at the reception.
"You can tell me whatever you need to, Donna. I'm totally here for you." C.J. tried not to sound scared.
"Okay..." Donna looked down at her hands. "It's not that... I wasn't... it wasn't a false positive. I was pregnant."
"Okay."
"I... um... had a miscarriage about a month ago. Little less then a month ago."
"Oh, God." C.J. resisted the urge to touch Donna's hand. Although, she noticed that Donna now looked as if the weight of a thousand planets had been lifted off her shoulders. "I'm so sorry, Donna."
"It really is okay, C.J. It feels good... to talk about it. With someone other than Josh."
"How's he doing with... it?"
"You know us, we both thought we had done something wrong. It took awhile before we... we understood that neither of us had done anything wrong. That sometimes these things happen. But we talk about it. I think, as twisted as this sounds, that it made us closer."
C.J. remembered an event three weeks prior and seeing Josh and Donna talk to almost no one but each other. Gripping each other's hands and leaving twenty minutes into the party. When C.J. had said a quick hello, she noticed that all four eyes in front of her appeared red rimmed. Leo had said they were both tired from the campaign.
"Does anyone else know?"
"Leo. We had told him about the pregnancy. We were just about to tell the rest of you."
"My God," C.J. took a sip of coffee and tried to process everything. "But you're okay now, right? The two of you... you can try again."
Donna smiled fully. "Absolutely. The doctor said... he said that I'm in excellent health and everything is working perfectly. Josh and his, you know, little swimmers are fine. There really wasn't any reason..." Donna stopped suddenly and took a deep breath. "No reason at all that the next time I won't be able to carry to term."
C.J. could tell that Donna was telling the truth. Her eyes brightened at the words "next time."
"Can I ask a girly question that's kind of sad?" C.J. was curious.
"Sure."
"What would you have named it? I mean, I guess, what are you thinking of naming the future little Lymans?"
Donna's smile widened even more. "Well, Noah for a boy, obviously. Probably Noah Josiah. And for a girl, we're kind of stuck between Abigail Joan and Claudia Joan."
C.J. felt tears spring to her eyes without her permission. "Jeez... Claudia Joan... you know what that shortens to, right?"
"It was my suggestion."
"And what if you have two boys?"
"It definitely won't be Toby or Leo, I can tell you that much. Charlie's kinda nice, though."
"Noah and Charlie... what if they inherit Josh's energy?"
Donna's grin was nearly splitting her face. "Then I'll have to drink a lot of coffee."
Josh and Donna would have children, C.J. thought to herself. She could visualize it, she could see it. If she had that stupid silver DeLorean, she could fly into the future and watch them slowly grow. This, like so many things in their long history, was just a setback and although it was painful, they would overcome it. Donna seemed lifted, just by talking about with C.J.
Tapping her fingers on the counter, Donna looked out the window for a moment and then looked back to C.J. "I don't really think that hardest part of what happened was that we lost the baby. That was hard, but once we were reassured that nothing was wrong..."
"What was the hardest part? I mean, again, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Donna's grin was gone. She took a very deep breath and blew it out slowly. "No, it's okay. I need to talk about it. The hard part for me and I think for Josh as well... we were asleep in bed when it happened and we woke up and there was so much blood..."
The acid from the coffee bounced around C.J.'s stomach. For a second, she felt like she was going to throw up.
"And I saw the blood on him and he saw the blood on me and... I mean, after fifteen seconds you rationally know what happened and why there's all this blood but those fifteen seconds were so long and the first thing I heard in my head was Toby's voice saying "Josh was hit.'"
C.J. almost couldn't breath and she saw Donna's younger, pale face answer "Hit with what?"
"Josh told me later that he saw me in a hospital bed and... I mean, any couple would panic, but I think for us it was... we've had to deal with blood too much already. I think that upset us more than losing the baby, although we're still pretty... sad about the baby."
DeLoreans were useless machinery. C.J. didn't need a time travel machine to see Josh's eyes as she told him about the explosion in Gaza. She could shake her fist up to the heavens again, as she had so many times in the past seven years. Again? They had to be hurt again? After they'd finally found each other, someone upstairs decided to show them more blood?
It hardly seemed fair.
C.J. found her voice, trying her best not to cry. Donna needed strength, surely, and more fortification than was in a cup of coffee. "I'm... sorry isn't enough, Donna. If there's anything to two of you need..."
"We're doing fine. Like I said, we talk about it... that really helps. And I know Josh has talked with Leo about it. And it really feels good to talk to you about it, C.J."
"Well, that's what the maid of honor is there for, Donna." C.J. brushed her eyes with her hands and smiled a small watery smile. "Gives me a chance to make up for that conversation during the shutdown."
Donna giggled slightly and put her head in her hands. "Good God, C.J., you're not still feeling guilty about that!"
"No... well, yes... I just... He was crushed when you left."
"We both... got over that. Even Josh will now say that my quitting was a good thing. Otherwise, we'd have stayed on until the end and then we would have started a relationship. And it wouldn't have been as strong a relationship as the one we have. I needed to leave him."
"Yeah, but I could've been nicer about it. And telling you to have a one-night stand... he would kill me if he knew."
"He knows."
"Well, I know he knows that you slept with Colin."
"No, he knows that you said that."
"Donna!" C.J.'s eyes bugged out of her head. She was, however, enjoying the change of subject. Not that she wouldn't have spent five hours talking about the miscarriage with Donna, but she had been on the verge of bawling.
"Relax, relax. He's not at all mad at you about it. Not after I explained it."
"And what spin did you put on it, my favorite press secretary?"
"I said that you meant I should have my fun before the inevitable happened. And that by "one-night stand" you meant a firm handshake."
C.J. smiled. "That's kind of what I meant at the time. Not the firm handshake part."
"I don't think he bought that, either."
"I guess inevitable is the wrong word, because nothing's inevitable. But, you know, I was never against..."
"Oh, yeah you were, my favorite press secretary."
"The press secretary was against it. C.J. Cregg thought it was as close to inevitable as anything else. That's what's getting me through all this wedding planning crap. It really feels... meant to be."
Donna gave the biggest, most beautiful smile C.J. had ever seen. "I have no doubts."
"I know."
"No doubts that poinsettia, rose and pine is not the way to go."
C.J. laughed. A DeLorean couldn't take her away from this moment.
