Hold Me Now
Part 5
"Hmmm…do you have to go today?" Josh mumbled as he buried his head in the crook of her neck and draped his arm around her midsection. It had been about a month since they discovered she was pregnant. She wasn't showing in a way noticeable to everyone else yet. The only reason he could tell she was pregnant was because he had spent so much time memorizing every curve of her body. He tenderly traced circles along her stomach with his fingers and wondered how he could have ever been afraid of this.
Over the past few weeks he had realized that he really did want to have kids with Donna. There was something magical about looking at her and knowing she was growing their child inside of her. He was an idiot for how he responded at first and still apologized from time to time. In true Donna fashion, she would just roll her eyes, call him an idiot and give him a kiss to let him know that things were fine between them.
"Yes." She chuckled. "But I'll only be gone for a day and a half."
"I wish I could just go with you."
"You're too important to the President to come with me." She reminded him. "Besides, I don't need a babysitter, and I have a feeling that's all you would do doing."
"I'm just sad I won't get to wake up with you tomorrow and do this first thing in the morning." He whined, letting his hand slip lower.
"You'll somehow survive." She told him, lightly swatting his hand away. "And we don't have time for a second round this morning."
"Fine." He laughed, kissing her neck. He watched as she got out of bed and put on her robe. "Care to take a shower together?"
She shook her head. "Remember what happened yesterday when we did that? We ended up being twenty minutes late. You were late for Senior Staff."
"And Leo chewed me out about it for a solid five minutes. But it was fun and completely worth it." He grinned boyishly. "You have to at least admit that."
She walked over to his side of the bed and sat down. "Oh it was very fun. It always is. But we can't be late again today so you'll have to take a shower alone." When she was done talking, she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. "I'm going first."
"Ok." He nodded. "I'll go make coffee for us." He got up and headed into the kitchen. Although Donna called it wasteful, he went out and bought a second coffee maker. That way in the mornings they could save time by making both his coffee and her decaf simultaneously. It was a small thing that he thought of to hopefully make this pregnancy go smoother for her.
He grabbed a blueberry muffin and started eating while the coffee brewed. Donna was right. He wanted to go with her to the conference in Vancouver as a babysitter more than anything else. Although there wasn't any chatter coming through from the Libyan groups, he still felt like there was danger surrounding the trip.
Of course, Donna chalked it up to him just being paranoid. And maybe she was right. Knowing that he had a real family now, not just a wife but also a kid on the way, was making him slightly over-protective. But he didn't want to lose more people that he loved.
Things were going great right now, which was usually the point in his life where the bottom drops out from under him. He didn't want that to happen again.
"The shower is all yours." She exclaimed happily as she entered the kitchen, clad in her robe and wet hair.
He watched as she went over and poured herself a cup of decaf.
"Thanks for brewing the coffee." She smiled, leaning in to kiss him.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and gently pulled her closer, noticing the strange look she was giving him.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" She chuckled.
"Like what?" He wasn't aware that he was staring.
"I don't know." She shook her head.
"I was just thinking about how beautiful you are." He explained. "And how much I love you."
She leaned in for another kiss. "I love you too. Now go take a shower so we can get to work."
He grinned and kissed her forehead. "Whatever you say, dear."
Donna sat quietly across from the First lady on the plane. They were almost to Vancouver and the First Lady was going over her speeches again. For most of the flight she had been looking out the window and thinking about how to approach the subject of her pregnancy with everyone. She and Josh had agreed that since she was so close to being out of the first trimester, they should start telling people. They had plans to tell his mother and her parents next weekend. That was going to be easy. But she wanted to tell the First Lady now, so that she would have time to make arrangements to replace her and was dreading it.
She realized that there was never going to be a perfect time for this conversation and decided to just jump in. "Ma'am, do you have a moment to talk about something?"
She saw the First Lady put down her papers. "Of course. What's on your mind?"
"You know how much I love working for you, right?"
"Of course." Abbey said, looking at her curiously.
"I love the work we've been able to do together and I appreciate all of the faith you have had in me."
"I know that. Where is this coming from?"
"I have to tell you something that you aren't going to like very much." She gave a small smile. "I'm…well Josh and I are going to have a baby."
Abbey smiled. "I kind of wondered after the conversation we had a few weeks ago. It's wonderful news and I couldn't be happier for you both. But why did you think I wouldn't be happy about it?"
"Well because I'm going to have to quit." She explained.
"No you don't." Abbey laughed.
"With all due respect, I don't know how Josh and I will be able to both work in the jobs we have and have a baby." She explained.
"Donna, do you want to quit?"
She had to be honest. Although she and Josh had agreed that it made the most sense for her to quit and be the one to care for the baby, she wasn't 100% thrilled with it. She loved her job. "No, but I…"
"Then you aren't quitting." Abbey interrupted. "There are several things we can do. We can hire a deputy for you to train to take care of the everyday minutia of the job, we can modify your hours or we can let you bring the baby to work. Those are just three ideas I came up with off the top of my head. I'm sure if we think about it more we can come up with a suitable arrangement."
"Why are you so determined to keep me on?" She laughed.
"You are invaluable to me." Abbey told her. "I couldn't have done any of this without you and I'm not going to give you up without a fight. I respect that you are starting a family and if you want to stay home then that is a choice I will support 100%. But if you want to keep working, then I will do everything in my power to make sure we can make that happen."
"Thank you." She smiled. "You have no idea what that means to me."
"Then it's settled. After we get back from the conference we will set up a time with Jed and Josh to discuss what changes need to happen."
She couldn't stop smiling. She was really lucky to have the kind of boss who would try to move mountains to keep her on.
Donna entered her hotel room that night, completely exhausted from the conference's welcome cocktail party and dinner. She no sooner had laid down on the bed when her phone rang. "Hello."
"How are you feeling?" Josh's voice rang through on the other end.
"I'm fine." She chuckled. "I'm just as fine as I was when you called three hours ago."
"Can you blame me for worrying?" He asked. "You're 2900 miles away in a foreign country right now."
"I'm in Canada, not some war-torn country." She reminded him.
"Yeah, but it's still far away."
She knew part of the reason he was calling was because of the threats made by the Libyan terror groups. Although the chatter about retaliating against the First Lady had stopped, security was still tighter than normal as a precaution. It was sweet of him to worry about her and the baby; however since there were no credible threats even the President thought it would be safe for them to continue to hold the conference. That should have been enough for Josh, but he was still worried.
"So there is something I wasn't able to talk about earlier and I wanted to run it by you now."
"Good or bad?" He questioned.
"Good." She chuckled. "At least I think it is good. I told the First Lady about the baby."
"Good. How did she take the news?"
"She is thrilled for us of course and she wants to keep me on." She explained. "She thinks we can make it work-that I can still work for her once the baby gets here." She was expecting Josh to be as excited about this as she was, but was met with silence. "Josh? You still there?"
"I thought we had agreed you would stop working."
"Yeah, but that was before. I didn't think there would be any way I could still work. But now…" She trailed off. "You don't like this idea, do you?"
"I'm just trying to figure out how it would work." He sighed. "But we don't have to worry about it right now. We can talk about it later."
"Yeah." She agreed, trying not to be disappointed. "You know, I kind of miss you."
"I kind of miss you too." He admitted. "How did everything go tonight?"
"Pretty good actually." She yawned. "Everybody is getting along and seems open to working together. We'll see what happens tomorrow but at least everyone seems to be receptive to our message."
"That's great. I should let you get to sleep though."
"Yeah. I probably should crash." She yawned again. "Tomorrow is a busy day, but at least I'll be able to end the day tomorrow in your arms."
"I can't wait." He told her. "I love you."
"I love you too. Goodnight."
"Well this was a very productive trip." Abbey smiled as they got into the car to head back to the airport.
Donna smiled back at her and put her bag next to her in the back seat. "I agree. I think we are going to be able to make some significant progress on the campaign now that we have everyone on board with us."
"And as an added bonus, we got to prove Jed wrong about the dangers that supposedly surrounded this trip." Abbey laughed.
She couldn't help but laugh as well. "Yeah. I think that was the main reason why Josh has been calling so many times."
"How many has it been today?"
"Eight." She sighed.
"It's sweet he worries about you." Abbey pointed out.
"I know it's sweet that he worries, but there hasn't even been a hint of danger on this trip. It's overkill."
She was about to say something else when there was a loud boom that threw her around the car. It seemed to happen in slow motion as the car flipped. She lost count on how many times they flipped. The force of the turns threw her around like a rag doll. Once the flipping was over, the car was upside-down.
There was a slight buzzing sound ringing in her ears but other than that it was silent. She could barely keep her eyes open. Every part of her body hurt and she wanted to close her eyes, but she forced herself to look around and try to stay alert. It wouldn't be long until help came for them. She was certain of that. And so she needed to stay awake. She needed to tell them about the baby.
She looked to the side and saw Abbey. Her eyes were closed and there was blood all over the side of her head. Blood was also coming out of her mouth. She wasn't a doctor but knew that wasn't a good sign. She tried to call out, to scream, hell even cry…but she couldn't.
So she tried to take a deep breath, only to be met with intense pain. While looking down she saw a huge piece of something stuck in her wrist, which was covered in blood. That couldn't be good either.
Her vision started to get blurry and before she knew it everything went black.