Disclaimer: Not mine
Author's note: Are you still with me? This chapter recounts the event the rest of the night. It is told from Donna's POV, Jackson's POV, Josh's POV and Toby's POV.
I thought it would be less painful to tell it in one continuous chapter then as each section getting his or her own chapter. Each of the stories connects together.
The events of the last hour leave me shaken and lost. Questions fill my mind, did Will and Leo know what they were doing when the sent me in there? How will Josh react? Should I go to the police? Would anyone believe me? How can I continue to work here? How many people know?
I stand shivering in the Hotel lobby waiting for my Josh to comfort me, to tell me everything will be ok.
God, I don't think I have ever seen him look so angry. Why is Will bleeding?
We walk in silence to the elevator, Jackson following behind. Silence, tension, thick air surrounds us.
Bing
The elevator opens its door. It's just us, we are finally alone from prying eyes. I crash into his chest, whimpering and sniffing. Please Josh, say kind words to me, and make me feel better. Take away all my pain. Hold me, kiss me, and tell me you still love me.
He is so stoic, unmoving. His arms aren't even around me. Why aren't you holding me?
"Did you like the way he tasted?" I left my head from his chest, everything is ridged, his face cold, his eyes unrecognizable.
"What?" I whisper.
"Did you like the way he tasted? Is that the way you raised all the money for Russell?" Who is this man? This is not my Joshua.
"Josh?"
"Did you whore yourself to all the contributors? What was the deal? Three million for a kiss? Five million for a blow job? Hell, Donna you didn't you just fuck him? We could have been sitting pretty of the rest of the Campaign."
My brain freeze. I think my heart stopped. My knees stopped working and I brace myself on the elevator wall. He called me a whore. Josh Lyman called me a whore.
How could he do that? He loves me, right. Didn't he see? Didn't he understand what was happening? I should retaliate. I should yell at him. But the words are caged in my throat.
"Well, Donna you sure have left scars on this relationship." The doors open up.
Scars. Scars. "You son of a bitch." I hiss out. He stays in the elevator. I hear Jackson say something, but everything is fuzzy and hard to focus. My hands are shaking and I can't get my card into the slot. I keep missing by fractions of inches.
How could he say that to me? Why would he do that? Scars, whore, fuck, these aren't words Josh says, not to me.
How long have I been standing here? Jackson guides my keycard and opens the door.
"Ms. Moss, I am sorry, I failed you." He whispers.
"It wasn't you who failed me, Jackson, it was everyone else."
I sit on the bed, encased in darkness. My brain flashes over every image over the day. In slow motion it plays then events that happen in the room. Even slower I hear Josh's words. His spiteful, hateful words, they choke me, stab me, and hurt me far worse then that monster did.
God I can still feel his hands, his mouth. I am dirty and tainted. No wonder why Josh hates me. I am disgusting.
I wallow in my shame, for I don't know how long, when there is a knock at the door. Josh? Will? Are they here for more attacks? An apology?
"Donna, it's Helen."
I open the door. She's changed out of her formal wear, I haven't. "I am leaving."
"I am quitting."
"Good."
Silence. Women are creatures of words, we fight with words, we comfort with words, we heal with words. But the times when words aren't enough, that is when we shine.
She embraces me. We are sisters, sisters in arms, fighting the same good fight. We fought to get a good man elected. Now we fight for something else. Our dignity, our relationships. Sometimes, when you are a warrior, you need to retreat, get a new barring, create a new strategy.
She does want to speak; I know what she wants to say. Her eyes say it all, "If you need anything, I'll come."
My eyes: "Thank you."
She leaves and once again I am alone. Back to the bed, that is my spot. I start to pull the bobby pins out of my hair, one by one, its slow and tedious, but it keeps my mind off of everything else.
I need a job. I can't work here, not with these people not with the people who could hurt me like this.
I am forced to make the hardest phone call of my life.
"Margaret, can I talk to CJ?" Hold it together Donna, you can do this. But the familiarity of her voice, the kindness, unknowing of the events that have occurred. Knowing full well I am going to have to explain it to her. It is a tsunami of tears, uncontrollable. She tells me to slow down, but I can't. Her questions are slow, not prying, but trying to comprehend the events of the night.
"CJ, can I come home?" I beg between my tears.
"Of course you can, honey."
"One more thing, I don't want the President to introduce Santos tomorrow during the speech."
"Done."
"Thank you."
Tears still soaking my skin, and with the last bobby pin released from my hair I walk into the bathroom to wash the horror from my body. I see myself for the first time. My dress is torn, my faces is red and blotchy, the bruising has already started on my arms, and my thighs. I let the dress fall with out much effort. Scars. My scars. He said I was beautiful, he said they were "cute", he lied.
I fall to the cold bathroom floor, sobbing until my stomach hurts, until the tears couldn't come any more.
He's worse the Kevin. Kevin, I knew was a snake, Josh hid his true colors and he did a marvelous job of it, it a tough charade to keep up for eight years.
I cry for all that I lost, the life that will never be, my career, a husband and family.
Never have I felt so alone.
My name is Charles Micheal Jackson. No one knows my middle name and to avoid a lifetime of jokes I am going to keep it that way.
Everyone calls me Jackson. I have been an agent for the Secret Service for nearly ten years. I have served for three administrations (Baker's administration for 60 hours). I must say the Bartlet Administration is my favorite. Jed Bartlet is a good man and it was an honor and a privilege to serve him.
But it was his staff that I like to watch, their interactions were unlike anything I had every seen. They were family. Charlie Young's interaction with the President, Toby Zeiger's brotherly conversations with Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn, the lectures CJ Cregg would give Donna Moss gave me insight to the female mind.
But there was one couple that amazed me, and all the other agents. Donna Moss and Josh Lyman, a secret love, never spoke, but felt with every fiber of their being. It was fun to watch her control it, entertaining to watch their debates. While in job titles Josh Lyman was her superior, Donna Moss excelled him in every way and the both knew it.
Two years into the administration the president and Josh Lyman were shot. I was one of the agents on duty, my job was to keep the press and hoards of people out of the hospital. Donna tried to get into the hospital, she was in such a rush she forgot her id. I was the one who let her in.
That night I watched CJ Cregg, Toby Zieger, Charlie Young, Dr. Bartlet and Zoe leave the hospital. Donna Moss and Mrs. Landingham did not.
It is natural for to feel some resentment towards to Secret Service after your boss gets shot. Donna Moss didn't. The Monday after the shooting there was a plate of cookies in the Secret Service office, with a note: Let's make sure it doesn't happen again.
Every Monday for six years a plate of cookies greeted us.
The Secret Service thought it would be funny to create code names for them: Marylyn and DiMaggio were chosen. If something were ever to happen to either one of them, it was our job to make sure they weren't apart for long.
The unspoken love between them grew, they survived new and doomed relationships, supported each other every step of the way.
Then Donna Moss' car exploded. There was a silence in the Secret Service office until news arrived that she was alive.
We were the first to send her flowers.
A few months later she left and started to work at the Russell campaign. The Agents there said she lost a lot of her luster, the glow that she had while she was working in the White House. Of course she did, Josh wasn't there.
When I was assigned to the Santos Campaign three days before Donna Moss arrived.
Sure enough, that first Monday a plate of cookies awaited us.
I joined her detail after the first letter arrived. I am going to protect her no matter what.
Tonight, when I was not fifteen feet way from her, she was nearly raped. I failed her.
I watched her quiver and shake in the elevator, I watched as the man she love spewed vile words at her. Then I broke one of the key rules of being an agent, I got involved.
He lingers in the elevator, I glare at him and say, "I get off duty in two hours, and I better not see you."
She stands at her door unable to get in, her shaking hinders all use of her hands. I aid her and allow her to enter her room.
"Ms. Moss, I am sorry, I failed you." I whisper.
"It wasn't you who failed me, Jackson, it was everyone else."
Her kindness is unparallel. I stand out side her door when Helen Santos knocks, I over head she is quitting. I can't blame her in the least, death threats are one thing, but what happened tonight was entirely different.
I hear her sobs as she talks on the phone. I knock, she allows me in and I remove Josh Lyman's luggage from her room and place in it Santos' room.
Five minutes before I go off duty, Josh Lyman places a bouquet of flowers at her door.
I'll kill them both if she forgives him so easily.
I can't believe she has the audacity to start crying to me. What the hell is her problem? She was kissing some other man. Her lips. Her tongue.
"Did you like the way he tasted?"
Don't say my name, like you care about me. How could she do that to me? Those are MY lips, she was supposed to be mine. And there she is nearly fucking some other guy. I can't leave her alone for fifteen minutes.
"Did you whore yourself to all the contributors? What was the deal? Three million for a kiss? Five million for a blow job? Hell, Donna you didn't you just fuck him? We could have been sitting pretty of the rest of the Campaign."
She probably did screw Will. Every time Russell won a state. Every little victory she shared with him. After all if she would let just any one kiss her, why not Will?
I wonder how she raised all that money. I don't have to wonder, I know. I saw it. I have evidence.
Way to go Donna, you just ruined my life. Wasn't it enough you left me twice, nearly aged me ten years when your car blew up, or cost me Chief of Staff. Did you need to toy with my heart? Crush all possible chances for us to be together? You were supposed to be my future. Now you are nothing.
"Well, Donna you sure have left scars on this relationship." She calls me a son of a bitch. She's the bitch, but I don't have time to call her that. Jackson pins me against the wall.
"I get off duty in two hours, I better not see you." Did he just threaten me? I could have him fired for that.
The ride back downstairs I am alone. I should get used to this.
I need to be alone anyway.
Matt is waiting in the lobby, he looks rough, I don't know why, he didn't walk in on his ex future wife making out with some other man. "I am going for a walk." I announce.
"Take Secret Service with you." Apparently I have been attached to Donna's letters. Whoever is trying to kill Donna wants me dead by association. I really don't know how to feel about that. At this moment I welcome death but want very little to do with Ms. Moss.
We walk out onto the humid summer evening; I might notice the weather any other day, but not today.
I want to hurt her, worse then mere words. For every ounce of I pain my heart and body feels, I want her to feel it ten fold.
It is the ache of finally having something and losing it. Thinking you know someone as much as you do, but realizing you don't. Betrayer. Harlot. Slut. Whore. These were not words I wanted to use to describe her. Should I expect any different, she slept with, Cliff, Dr. Freeride, Commander Wonderful, Will? Hell, she fucked Colin after knowing him for a few hours. Her taste in men leaves much to be desired. Now I am just another notch in her bed post.
Could any connection I thought we had be a fraud?
She licked my wounds with me; she held my hand, when I needed it. A part of me can't believe she could do this to me. Her lips were on his. Donna couldn't do this to me.
But I saw it. I was a witness to her crime, the other's I simply assumed. The others I could ignore but THIS, there is no ignoring.
The familiar glow of a Coors sign, a bar. I know how to hurt her. I'll find some skank and ravage her. I'll make sure Donna see it in the morning, flaunt it. Mock her.
"Don't do it sir." Steven pleads.
"Do what?"
"Go in there screw some random girl. It's not worth it. Ms. Moss loves you, she always has. The events that occurred tonight were out of her control."
"Out of her control! She's been working in politics for years, she knows who that guy is. She knew what she was getting into. Don't try to paint Donna Moss as the victim here, it doesn't look good on her."
"Whatever you believe or you think happened, it didn't. She wouldn't cheat on you."
"She already has. She left me twice. She screwed me countless times. She was never faithful to me."
"For eight years we've watched the two of you. When you got shot she never left, you flew to Germany to be by her bedside. Those sort of feeling do not disappear because of one night. You two are meant for each other. You walk into the bar, you'll lose her forever. I am telling you, sleep it off. Think it over. If it still stings as bad in the morning, do whatever you want."
My hand stays on the door handle. All the hatred I feel for door knobs returns. Here it is one of the biggest decisions I have to make, to give in to my demons or to give her a second chance. Maybe I could give her a chance to explain what happened. Maybe everything isn't over. Maybe we could repair all that damage. But for what? So she could crush me again. No thank you.
I open up the door.
"Mr. Lyman… that's a gay bar." Steven states. Looking in confirms it.
So fate plays his hand once again.
I turn back to the hotel. "Which way is the hotel?"
"You walked in a straight path. It's back ten blocks." Second chances life is filled with them right? I mean she could apologize, I should at least give her that, after eight years she deserves an opportunity. I have nothing to apologize for… OH MY GOD I called her a whore. SHIT.
Fate once again is on my side, we pass a 24 hour flower shop called, "So You Screwed Up." I pick out an arrangement, something pretty and expensive. I go through ten drafts for a card. But all I am left with is, "sorry."
When I return to the hotel, Will and Matt are in a screaming match. All I hear is, "She's quitting because of whatever Josh said to her." Is she quitting? Again. I sense a reoccurring pattern here. I ride the same elevator up. I replay the conversation again in my head. I guess I do have some things to apologize for. Jackson stares me down. I go to knock on her door, but stop.
I can hear her crying, big heaving sobs. I can't deal with all this now. I lay the flowers at the door.
"Your stuff is in Santos' room." Great.
I head down towards the bar. Will is still bleeding. Good. Santos is on the phone, "I am sorry but I can not take this contribution." He has already ripped up the check. The CHECK.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH, YOU TOOK THE CHECK! YOU PIMPED OUT MY GIRLFRIEND!"
"I didn't, Will did."
"You were the one who said we needed the money any way possible." He slurs his words. There is a near empty bottle of Jack near him.
"I don't even know who you guys are anymore." I sit down at the bar and order a beer. All of us are on opposite sides of the bar.
I don't know what happened tonight. I didn't think I ever will. But I do know one thing. Tomorrow won't be pretty.
After a very long day, Congress is giving us a hard time with a Bill, they keep adding more stuff to it, I finally make my way into CJ office. After all even with all the crap, it is still a day of jubilee. Finally after eight years, Josh pulled his head out of his ass and took a good look around.
"They are in love." I proclaim.
"I know, she called me earlier today. How long before he screws it up?" CJ mocks.
"He won't." I don't know when I became the optimist and CJ become the realist, but when it comes to Josh and Donna, I need to believe everything is going end ok. I don't need a happy fairytale ending, but after eight years, I need some sense of closure.
"Oh, he will, it is just a matter of how bad. Did you call Sparky yet?"
"I figured he would call me after Josh called him. I didn't want to ruin the surprise."
Margaret comes in, something is wrong. Will CJ have to leave to go to the SIT room and ruin our little party?
"CJ, Donna's on the phone. I think something is wrong." CJ gives me a knowing look. Damn it he already screwed up. How did he screw it up in an hour? How does something like that happen?
"Donna honey, what's wrong? You need to stop crying, slow down I can't understand you."
I am going to kill him.
CJ turns away from me. "Start from the beginning. Will and Leo told you to go in there?"
Will you son of a bitch, how could you do something like this to Donna. Not after all that we went through… she was supposed to save you. She did save you, and now this is how you repay her?
"You listened? Donna you should have known better, he's dangerous. No. Eight years ago."
"CJ who?" I whisper, she writes a name down on a paper. Justin Hall.
Whatever happened Justin Hall is not good news. SHIT. There is no way Donna would have known, she wasn't working in politics when it happened. It was before we even starting thinking about leaving New Hampshire during the Bartlet for America Campaign. Hell, Josh wasn't even working for us when it happened.
I write a quick note back to CJ, and she apologizes to Donna, "Did he hurt you? Do you need to see a doctor? Tough tomorrow you are going to see one. What happened when Josh found you? WILL TOOK THE CHECK!" CJ screech fill the room. Margaret jumps back a little. I don't think it is a good idea to scare a pregnant woman.
Somehow I am not surprised that he would do that. I don't see why CJ is.
The next screech I am not prepared for: "JOSH CALLED YOU A WHORE!"
You're dead Lyman.
The anger becomes visible in the room. It's like another entity.
CJ agrees with Donna for a few minutes and hangs up the phone. She refuses to look at me. She blames herself for this whole thing. If she didn't go the President about my fears about Will, none of this would have happened. In her eyes we are both guilty, and sharing the blame with Josh, Will and Leo.
"She's quitting."
"That's a good idea."
"You are going to introduce the Santos campaign tomorrow. I am taking it off the President's schedule."
"Why?"
"Because Donna asked me to." She doesn't need to explain any farther.
"One last screw you to the boss."
"No, I don't think that is it." CJ looks out the window, lost in her own thoughts and shame.
You hurt Donna. Worse yet, you hurt CJ. Josh Lyman, we are done.