Just One Name (5?)
Rating: PG for some language
Disclaimer: Not mine
Notes: See Part One for premise.
I took a bit of poetic license in healing Donna's injuries to move the story along.
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Free time was almost nonexistent in the Bartlet administration. However, the little windows of it created moments of particular silliness. On the morning after C.J.'s announcement of the new DCOS, several of the senior staffers found themselves bored while waiting in the chief of staff's office.
"Who am I?" Toby asked as he placed an entire chocolate donut in his mouth. "The pwesident needs to be bwiefed." Kate looked genuinely confused, both at the joke and at Toby's attempt at something humorous. C.J. rolled her eyes and grabbed a piece of fruit.
A few minutes later, Josh entered the office with two coffees, several folders, and a backpack slung over his left arm. Donna followed behind him on crutches. Her physical therapy sessions had been going well enough that her doctor recommended upright walking. Toby didn't bother with greetings. "Where the hell have you been?"
Josh had a huge smile on his face. "It just so happens that Donna and I had someone very important to pick up at the airport."
"Look at all of you cool people hanging out in the boss's office."
"Sam!" C.J. screamed. She ran across the office and enveloped the man in a hug. She even managed to momentarily lift him off the ground. Everyone stood up to greet their old friend with handshakes and hugs.
"Okay people, okay. Let's not get so emotional," Josh scolded through his smile. "We've got work to do." He took a footstool that Donna had brought in from her apartment and gingerly propped up her bad leg. Donna gave him a small smile of appreciation while C.J., Toby, Kate, and Sam eyed them both curiously. Before anyone could say anything about his thoughtful behavior, he began the meeting.
"Without further ado," Josh began as he plopped twenty-some file folders into Sam's lap, "Let's welcome aboard our new Deputy Chief of Staff." This was followed by applause.
"All right, where do we stand on the energy conservation initiative?" Josh asked as he began to fix the two coffees next to him.
"We still need to bring Senator Pulley on board before we can move forward. After that, we should bring it to the President," supplied Toby.
"Sounds like a plan." Josh added two packets of artificial sweetener and a generous amount of milk to one of the coffees and then handed it, without so much as a sideways glance, to Donna who flawlessly replaced the coffee in his outstretched hand with the English muffin that she had buttered for him. This earned them more curious glances from the others in the room. The glances were not those of shock but merely ones of intrigue.
Josh continued. "Since our time left in office is limited, the president has decided to step up his education plan. He wants to encourage individual states to allocate more money for statewide scholarship programs for as many students as possible while simultaneously increasing nationwide grants for them. We've got a limited amount of time to make a difference; let's do some good."
Josh was headed out of his office and on his way to the Roosevelt Room for a meeting about a healthcare bill with some very cranky members of the opposing party when he heard Donna on the phone and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that, too. Oh, that's sounds great; I've never been there, but the food is supposed to be fabulous. Okay, great. I'll see you then. Bye."
She sighed heavily and stared at the phone for several seconds before looking up and seeing Josh staring at her. "Oh, Josh, you scared me." She hit him lightly on the arm. "You're going to be late for your meeting."
It took Josh a moment to recover from what he had overheard. Could her phone conversation have been the same person who had sent her the orchids with the cryptic card? He knew it was an invasion of her privacy to have read the card, but he hadn't been able to help himself. They had been on her desk sitting next to the roses that he had sent her; those roses were a replacement for the ones that he wasn't able to give her at the hospital in Germany. He had a pretty good idea who had sent the orchids, and it made him feel physically ill. Nevertheless, he shook off the feeling and spoke. "Walk with me," he said softly with a heartfelt smile.
The meaning of his words were not lost on Donna. This was their first chance to have a walk and talk since her return. Of course, they had technically walked from the entrance to Josh's office that morning, but that had been with Sam. Still, resuming their walks made Donna's heart skip a beat. She nodded and he handed her the crutches. Slowly but surely, they began a walk down the corridor.
He was the one to jumpstart their talk. "Did you know that the president has a new personal aide? Apparently Charlie left after he got his degree."
"Um, yeah, I heard something like that," Donna replied sheepishly, recalling her conversation with Charlie a few days earlier. He doesn't want me holding his jacket for the rest of my life.
"Don't forget your dinner tonight at eight with the Congressmen about the thing," she reminded him.
He registered what she said about dinner but continued to think about how Will had reprimanded him the other day about not giving Donna enough opportunities. He decided that he needed to change that.
"Do you want to come along to the meeting tonight?" He continued before she could make a retort about being a note-taker at the table as had been her duty over the last few years.
"You're familiar with all of the stats on the President's education initiatives and where his plan needs work. I think that your expertise on the issue could really help pull them in our direction." Donna's eyes grew wide and she was about to say yes until she remembered her pre-existing dinner plans.
"I wish that I could, but I'm having dinner with...a friend." She saw the look of disappointment on Josh's face. She wondered if the disappointment stemmed merely because she couldn't attend a business dinner. "Thank you for the opportunity, though," she replied genuinely.
"Sure," he said, not quite masking his disappointment. They stopped in front of the glass doors of the Roosevelt Room. She turned to head back to their office when he called her name. He looked into her eyes and said, "I find you very valuable." Her head perked up and they locked eyes for several seconds, each concerned that they were, individually, becoming more and more obvious by the second.
Donna had managed to leave work slightly early to prepare for her dinner "date." While applying her makeup, she considered the implication of the word date. She didn't really want to refer to it as a date, because it really wasn't. Her friend was just in town for a few days and wanted to see her. He had been very kind to her, and she thought it only right to accept his invitation. She knew that he hoped something might come of it, and her mind knew that she should feel something more than friendship for her dinner companion.
As her mind worked at a mile a minute, she applied mascara. It was her heart that was completely unaccepting of all men except for one. Despite that, she knew that she had to get some semblance of a life. She could be a woman who loved her career, but she absolutely had to go on social outings as well. These social outings needed to include people that she didn't see at work.
Her mind drifted to some of the serious relationships that she had been in over the years. In all of them, she had been happy at some point. She realized that many people could make each other happy in relationships, but considerable fewer people made each other happier than they had ever been in their lives.
It was easy for any couple to laugh together and have fun together. It took two people who were made for each other to support each other in the darkest hours of their lives and still be there when the sun came out again. She rolled her eyes at her inner girliness making an appearance. Yet, upon hearing the knock at the door she wished she hadn't agreed to dinner. Her heart just wasn't in it.
After Josh's final meeting for the day with the president, he was driven to his dinner meeting. Josh and the president had decided that the best way to promote the new education plan was to make stops in cities large and small across the U.S. and visit with universities in the area. C.J. planned on announcing the idea at the next morning briefing.
The new Chief of Staff tried to shake off the fact that he was about to share a meal in a dimly lit romantic restaurant with two members of Congress. The best he hoped for was that no violin players approached their table. The only people who scared him more than violin players were clowns. He did not like clowns. The hostess led Josh to a table near the center of the restaurant.
Congressman Santos was waiting for him. The two men shook hands and sat down. Congressman Skinner had called to say that he was running late. Josh took his tardiness as an opportunity to hound Santos about not running again.
"Sir, you really should reconsider running again. I hesitate to be rude. Well actually, I'm not going to hesitate to be rude. You're really screwing us by not running again."
Santos laughed. "I'm truly sorry about that, but my kids are growing up so fast." He pulled out his wallet and showed Josh their pictures. "I don't want to miss any more of my son's little league games or my daughter's dance recitals because I had to stay and vote on a bill. Plus, I don't know how much more time that I can spend away from my beautiful wife." He flipped to her picture. "Politics is a great career for me, but my family is my life. I'm sure working the twenty hour days that you do, you don't understand what I mean but-"
"No, no, I do, sir. Believe me when I say that I completely understand." He heard a voice reverberating in his mind. So you fly half way around the world on a moment's notice...to rush to a woman's bedside...when the White House is facing off a Biblical apocalypse.
At that moment, Matt Skinner arrived and greeted the two gentlemen with sincere apologies about his tardiness. They put in their orders and Josh began to fill them in on the new education plan in the hopes of launching a bipartisan effort.
While waiting on their food, Josh's eyes glanced around the restaurant. It really was a nice place, he noted. Toward the back, there were four rather secluded booths with intricate details drawn on the glass decorations hanging over the seats of the booth. Through one of the pieces of glass, he detected long blonde hair facing a man across from her. No, he thought. It's not her. You're just imagining things. Then, he saw a waiter emerge from the kitchen with what was the most grotesquely green looking salad that he had ever seen in his life. And it was taken to the blonde at the table. His suspicion that it was Donna was confirmed by the crutches with the purple rags attached to the top, leaning against the booth.
She can't be on a date, he thought sadly. Not after everything that we... His thoughts were interrupted.
"Josh," Congressman Skinner snapped a finger in front of his friend's face. "You still with us?" There was a hint of concern in his voice.
Josh snapped his head back to his table. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Where were we?"
He tried to listen intently to the conversation, but his eyes were drawn back to Donna and her dinner companion. He thought that he could get a better look if he leaned back slightly in his chair. However, every inch of vision that he gained by leaning back in his chair caused him to lean back even further until before he knew it, he sensed another crash approaching.
He felt contact between the top of his skull and the floor. Several women in the restaurant screamed in horror. Alexander and his other detail for the night ran toward the table from their posts near the front and back of the restaurant.
His dinner companions stood up quickly and inquired about how he was feeling as well. "I'm okay, just a little snafu. Really, this happens to me all of the time. I'm very clumsy." He slowly leaned up and winced at the headache that he felt approaching.
Without being able to help himself, he glanced one last time over at Donna's table. He saw her glancing over the side of her booth and caught her eye.
She tilted her head to the side as if to ask if he needed her. He shook his head as she gave him a concerned look and turned back to her dinner companion who was now in plain view. It was none other than Colin Ayres. Suddenly, all of the hope that he had been experiencing over the last few days was rapidly sucked out of him. By this time, their food had arrived and he turned back to his table, suddenly without any appetite.
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