Tradition
By Michelle
Disclaimer: These characters are the property of NBC, Aaron Sorkin, or whoever. I'm not writing this for profit in any way, shape, or form, but because I have a lot of spare time on my hands.
Author's Notes- This is a companion piece to "Remembrance" I thought this up one day in math class when I was really, really bored. Well, that's all, enjoy!
Spoilers- Minor ones for "What Kind of Day Has This Been" and "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen".
Rating: PG
The groundskeeper looked at his watch. It was getting late and she still hadn't come.
He wondered if something had happened to her. After all, she came every year on this date and had done so for the last nine years.
At first, she had come more often than that, but eventually her visits had become less and less frequent until they only happened once a year. But still, she had never yet not come on this date.
He wondered sometimes what the significance of this day was that she she always came no matter what. He remembered one year when she had been hugely pregnant and yet, she had still come. It was obvious that she couldn't bear to miss this day. Whatever it meant.
That was why he was worried that she wasn't there. Then, suddenly he sighed with relief.
She had come. As usual, she didn't seem to notice him. Instead she walked right past him towards the spot she visited year after year.
Sometimes he got curious as to who she was visiting and why, but he didn't want to invade her privacy, so he never checked.
Yet, he would bet that it was a former lover. There was just something in her eyes, a silent grief that always got to him. Still, she wore a wedding band, but she hadn't always, he remembered.
The woman finished then and silently left the graveyard.
This time, he couldn't help it. He had to know who she was and why she always came.
As he stood in front of the grave she always visited, the pieces all fell into place.
He knew now why she was so familiar, why something about her seemed to call out to him.
He remembered the story. It had been all over the papers ten years ago, after President Bartlett had been shot at.
A member of his staff had been killed and after his death, it had come out that he had been about to marry his assistant. Whatever negative publicity that might have received at any other time was over-shadowed by the tragedy of what had happened.
Suddenly they were America's version of Romeo and Juliet, her face had been on the cover of every major news publication. Eventually though, things cooled down and she faded out of the public eye.
Still, he wondered why he hadn't remembered earlier. Especially not at the beginning, but...
Oh, well, maybe it was better that he hadn't. This was something she needed to do in peace. Her yearly tribute to the man she had once loved.
But deep down he sensed that this was the last time she would come here. It had been ten years today, it was time for her to move on once and for all.
He took one last look at the grave and then he walked away.
A mystery had been solved and more than that, the last chapter of the tragic romance of Joshua Lyman and Donatella Moss Seaborn had been completed.
The End