"Exile's path awaits him, not twisted gold- frozen thoughts in his heart-case, no joy of earth." Josh muttered to himself as they watched Toby walk into the courthouse for his sentencing. CJ watched his lips move as he said the words. She recognized them.
"Josh?" Donna looked over at him with confused eyes.
"…All delight has gone." He finished before looking up at her and smiling sadly. She took his hand and joined him on the sofa.
"The Wanderer." CJ whispered, Josh nodded at her. She leaned her head into Danny's shoulder, her eyes never left the screen. He walked up the court house steps with his quick purposeful stride. He was going to get prison time. When he was finally released his children would quiet possible be in middle school.
"I should have gone down there." Josh rubbed his hand across his face.
"Josh." Donna grinned, softly brushing her hands across his cheek. " You know that there was no way I was going to let you go down there, right?"
"Yeah." He growled taking her hand and kissing it. "I just want him to know..."
"Sam, Ainsley, Bonnie and Ginger are all there. He knows, Josh." It was Danny who said this. CJ knew it was for her benefit. She had wanted to be there too. Danny practically had to wrestle her to the floor to keep her from getting in the car. She couldn't have gone. She knew she couldn't have gone, but she'd needed to.
CJ held her breath when they announced the sentence.
Twenty years? Honestly? Twenty years? She knew that was the maximum penalty, but he hadn't given away military positions or the location of secret bunkers. He hadn't propped the door to the White House open and invited in Hitler's Youth.
He'd wanted to save lives.
Danny squeezed her hand and her eyes snapped to him. Breathe, he mouthed to her. She did. He kissed her head as the tears fell down her cheeks. His children would be grown, married, moved away. They would never know him.
"Why?" She asked, looking at Josh as if he knew.
"They're making an example out of him." Josh said grimly. "They're sending us a message." He turned his face to hers when he said this.
"Well they can shove there message up their asses." She fired back looking at the television.
She looked at Toby's face. His jaw had already set, his stance firm and unwavering. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't have noticed the way his eyes moved rapidly around the room. You wouldn't have noticed the slight nodding of his head. You wouldn't have noticed Toby Zeigler was falling apart.
CJ noticed. Josh reached his hand across the arm of the sofa to her, tangling his fingers around hers. He noticed too.
Matt Santos was about to become President. He shook his head and smiled at himself in the mirror hanging in the hallway. "President Santos." He tried to look presidential. "El Presidente." He tried to look infallible. "Mathew Santos, Commander and Chief of the United States of America. This never gets old."
He looked up to see Josh Lyman standing, grinning at him knowingly, in the doorway.
"Josh." He nodded, trying not to look embarrassed. "I was just, uh.."
"Practicing?" Josh offered, walking into the room.
"Yes." He turned gesturing to the couch in the room. "What's on your mind, Josh?" He watched Josh's eyes darken. He folded his hands and looked back up at Santos.
"Sir, I want you to know that this is difficult for me." He looked back at Matt. Santos felt his throat tighten.
"Josh?"
"I won't be going to The White House with you, Sir." Santos watched as Josh let the words tumble out of his mouth. He found himself looking down at he coffee table as if they were laying there.
"I don't understand." Matt looked up and saw Josh swallow hard.
"I can't do it anymore, Sir." He started. "I have to think about Donna and the baby. I have to think about my health."
"But Helen has plans to bring Donna on board with her, it'll be-."
"Too much." Josh stopped him. "I know what a good Chief of Staff to the President looks like, Sir. I know you deserve that. I also know what a good Chief of Staff sacrifices, and I can't do that." He looked Matt in the eyes, holding his gaze.
"You're sure." Matt stated, knowing there was no question.
"Yes, Sir."
"Do you have any recommendations?"
"Do you have a best friend, Sir?" He said quickly, Matt nodded.
"He's probably your guy." Josh stood up to leave.
"What about you, what are you going to do?" Santos watched the grin appear on his former campaign managers face.
"I have a best friend too, Sir." Josh grinned. "And he just got a new job."
"I look ridiculous." Donna smoothed the cream colored dress out over her wide stomach.
"You look amazing." Ainsley shook her head and turned Donna until she was facing herself in the mirror.
"It does look better straight on then from the side." She said optimistically. Ainsley shook out the back of her dress.
CJ was fastening her small gold necklace from behind her as Zoë held up her hair.
"How am I supposed to pee in this again?" She asked shooting Ainsley a panicked look. "I'm six months pregnant, I have to pee every ten minutes."
"You get one of us and we'll help you." Abbey Bartlett told her before taking the bottled water out of her hand and grabbing the lip stick off of the table.
"I need other people's help to go pee?" Donna tried not to move her lips much as the first lady began applying lip stick to them. "The First Lady has to be on alert in case I need to pee?"
"Stop moving." Zoë ordered, slipping one of the little curly parts of Donna's hair into place. "There, see? Your beautiful, Donna."
"Are we really gonna do the thing?" CJ sighed when she asked this.
"We have to it's a thing." Donna explained.
"Okay then come on."
"Josh?" Her voice called from the other side of the door.
"Sam?" Josh bellowed his best man's name across the room. "We gotta do the thing."
"I know, I know." Sam stumbled over the chair beside him, still trying to put on his shoe. "Lets go."
The moved to the door and Sam put his hands over Josh's eyes.
"CJ?" Sam called back.
"Ready?" She asked.
"Yup. Lets get this over with." CJ opened the door. Donna stood on the other side, a white scarf tied loosely over her closed eyes. She lifted her hands towards Josh and CJ moved them to the soft piece of fabric.
"As endearing as this is? It's kind of impractical." Sam said impatiently.
"It's a thing." Josh and Donna said together as she blindly maneuvered her hands until she was sure she had it right. They'd been practicing this.
"It was either this or wait until she got down the isle." He smiled. "This seemed less showy."
"There, how'd I do?" She asked putting her hands on Josh's chest. He covered them with his own.
"Surprisingly perfect." CJ said dryly. Josh brought her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, yanking Sam's arms along with him.
"Okay then. See you in a few." Sam pulled Josh away and closed the door slowly as CJ pulled Donna back. "Are we ready now?"
"Sam, it's a thing." Josh's eyes fluttered open and he glanced at himself in the mirror on the desk. It was perfect.
"I know. Lets go."
It had been Donna's idea to have the twins in the wedding. Now, as CJ watched them from her spot next to Ainsley at the alter, she wanted to cry. Molly was the spitting image of Toby. Huck had always looked like Andi, but today CJ noticed his posture was all Toby. That walk like someone had put to much starch in the shoulders of his jacket. She looked at Sam and Josh standing across from her, they each looked up. 'He should be here'.
It was the same look that Josh had given Sam when he had stopped to wave at Mallory and Jenna.
"He should be here." Josh had said quietly.
"I bet he is, Josh." Sam had countered.
Toby however was not. He was in prison. He may actually catch a glimpse of it on CNN tonight if he got that privilege. CJ hoped he'd get to see his kids, all dressed up and walking down the isle.
Donna had watched the groomsmen meet her bridesmaids half way down the isle. She marveled at the beautiful couples the Bartlett White House had produced; Zoë and Charlie, CJ and Danny, Sam and Ainsley. She looked up to meet his eyes as he stepped out into view. She watched his emotions play across his face. She was about to marry Josh Lyman. How in the world did she get from Wisconsin, to New Hampshire, to here?
"It's time." She watched Will Bailey and Matt Santos roll out the small white runner.
Later, it would strike her as odd that the future President was an usher at her wedding. Later, she would reflect on how never in her wildest childhood dreams could she have imagined that she would get married n the grand lobby of the White House. Later, she would contemplate how she had become on of the 'Washington Insiders'.
Right now, she was only thinking about Josh Lyman.
"Donna and Josh have written their own words. Seems as if they were afraid I would go on too long." The President paused for the snickers before prompting the bride to speak. "Donna?"
"Joshua, in the last ten years I have learned about what it is to love someone more than anything else. I have learned what it is to want nothing more than the happiness of another. In loving you, I came to know myself. You showed me my strength in the face of weakness, and bravery in the face of fear. I have learned never to take no for an answer. I have learned to always look for the 'real thing'. What you didn't know was that I knew I had found the 'real thing' from the very first moment I saw you.
"Fate brought us to a place where neither of us was supposed to be; and fate entwined our destinies in that moment. I can explain it in no other way then that. The complexities of our finding each other and falling in love are too complicated to be coincidental. I set out ten years ago to find a life for myself, and that road lead me straight to you."
Ainsley handed her a thick gold band and she took it, rubbing it between her fingers before slipping it on his hand.
"Joshua, I promise to love you when others find you unlovable. Respect you when I disagree with your reasoning, and to honor your dreams as I honor my own. I promise to remember that we are each other's destiny and without you I am incomplete."
"Josh?" President Bartlett turned his head towards the groom. Josh fumbled with his note cards before slipping them back to Sam and speaking with out them.
"Donnatella, ten years ago, in New Hampshire, I gave my name badge to you and you became mine. I don't think back then, either one of us could possibly have understood what that meant.
"I don't think that we could have known what we would go through, working here, in this building. I don't think on that day, you knowingly signed on to calm my temper, lift my spirits, or banish my fears.
"Back then we didn't know what Roslyn would bring, and that you would become my life line. I'm quiet positive that it was your love that kept me alive; your love, that helped me face the demons of that day.
"In New Hampshire, you had know way of knowing that I was claiming you for life. That I would fall madly in love with you, and you would rival oxygen on my list of things I needed to survive. Before you, I was lost and wandering. With you I am whole."
Sam put his hand on his best friend's shoulder before dropping her ring into his hand. It was his turn to slip a ring onto her delicate finger.
"Donna, I promise to love and honor you, support and respect you and remember everyday that without you I am nothing."
"My dear friends," Jed Bartlett's voice rose above the sniffles of the crowd. "With the power entrusted to me by the United States of America, I now -finally- pronounce you husband and wife. Josh kiss the girl."
He did.