AN: Thank you for all the kind reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter
Chapter Two - As We Relive Our Lives
I'd be lying if I said that I have never anticipated that kind of question. The one about Josh and Donna I mean. In truth I've been waiting for it pretty much every day that there is no decent story going on. After all that anticipation you'd have thought I could have come up with a better answer.
See the thing was, up until that moment I had no idea that all those hypothetical situations we'd been throwing around about the two of them might have actually been true. It was a nice little joke, a small 'maybe one day they'll realise' thing. Regular visitors to the West Wing used to enquire after them in the way you enquire after the children of a friend you haven't seen in a while, "What have Josh and Donna got up to?" or "Has he managed to ask her yet?" that kind of thing, but it was always half in jest.
I mean we knew, we all did. We probably worked it out before they did, it seems a bit callous to say this now but at first we sort of dismissed it as Josh needing the anti-Mandy. And Donna was certainly that. See this was way back when Josh and Mandy were still going out, during the first campaign, and we all knew how much they argued. Fought. So Josh would come into work in a foul mood and there would be his smiling, blonde assistant who refused to get him coffee, who got on better with his parents than Josh did himself, who always asked him why he thought his policy was the best. You wouldn't have thought that this would make Josh smile, but it did. An early morning banter session with Donna made him positively glow with energy.
Over the years people tried to explain Donna's attraction to Josh as one sided- a school girl crush on the man who had rescued her from a future as a Wisconsin housewife- in truth he needed her as much as she needed him, she rescued him too. It was Donna who was there when the thing with Mandy imploded, it was Donna who helped pick up the pieces, it was Donna who was there to listen to all of Josh's ranting when Mandy came to work for the President, it was Donna who was there when Josh got shot, it was Donna who made sure Josh followed The Rules, it was Donna who was there for Josh during the MS scandal, it was Donna who worked the twenty hour days with Josh during the second campaign, it was Donna who waited patiently when Amy mucked Josh's life up, it was Donna who - yet again - picked up the pieces. How she kept going through all of that is beyond me; she is, quite literally, the only person in the world who could put up with all of that and still love him. Not to mention put up with all of Josh's 'adorable' personality traits.
Anyway for about a year, hell since Josh and Mandy broke up, I've had three press statements ready. I didn't want to get caught out by anything so I had every situation covered, if Josh and Donna had asked me to keep it private the answer was simple: 'You know it isn't policy to comment on the personal lives of staff.' If the President had said that the press had to know (we're all more than a little careful about when to tell the press these days) then the statement was slightly less simple, "I'm glad you asked, Joshua Lyman informed me earlier this week that he and Donna Moss are moving in together. He and Donna would like to say how happy they are and thank you for all your support." The third statement was never really a serious one, but it was the one I had most fun composing, "And finally, after three years of avoiding the subject and a year of facing up to it I'd like to announce that the winner of the Josh/Donna pool is Katy." (Don't ask me why it was Katy, I just always thought she'd picked the date.)
So why couldn't I come up with any one of those statements? It's simple really, I had no idea that anything was going on. In every single one of my hypothesises I was one step ahead of the press; it seems that some of the people really don't understand that if anything happens I am their first phone call, not the one they make after the press have already written the story. I expected Josh to tell me, not just because of what I do but also because I'm his friend, and I'm Donna's friend too. You can't spend as much time together as we all do without forming some kind of bond.
As soon as I left the briefing room I found the rest of the Senior Staff team waiting.
"My Office. Now." Leo never wastes words.
It's only then that I notice that the person who got us into the mess is conspicuously absent., "Where's Josh?" I ask Sam in an undertone.
"He ran." Toby says bluntly, just as quietly.
Sam doesn't seem to be paying any attention, he follows us as we walk through to Leo's office but his mind is obviously somewhere else. "Sam-" I begin but Leo cuts me off.
"Not here C.J." Without Josh here it looks like Leo's looking for someone else to chastise.
We reach Leo's outer office in silence. "Margaret tell Josh and Donna to come to a Senior Staff meeting in half an hour."
Margaret nods, "I'll have to send a note down to them."
"Why can't you just phone them or email them?" Leo asks crossly.
"Today is my Amish day Leo, I'm not touching any electrical appliances."
"Margaret I want you to email Donna now."
"But It's my Amish day." She sees the look on his face, "Right email."
We walk into Leo's office and take our customary positions. We all seem to be on auto-pilot, I wonder if the boys are doing what I am - wondering when and where, trying to put together all their little moments and finding the solution.
"So who knew." Leo is direct.
"I didn't and I don't think anything's going on.." Toby shrugs, "It's just a rumor."
We look at Toby shocked. "Toby why do you think that?" Leo asks.
"Because only in a world of make believe would Josh date Donna. They don't think of each other like that, they're more like brother and sister."
"Toby sometimes you are very stupid for such an intelligent man." I say, "Of course they think of each other like that."
Toby looks a little confused, if I had a camera and this was any other time I'd want to take a photo of his face right now just to prove to him later that he doesn't always work it out.
"But Josh has been seeing someone else for weeks. Months even."
"Donna, he's been seeing Donna Toby. Think about it, what has he ever told you about this girlfriend?"
"Nothing. That's how it should be, why would I want to know about his private life." Toby raises his eyebrows.
"How do you know that he's dating someone then?"
"Because he looks happy, he leaves before midnight from time to time, he goes out for lunch occasionally, he eats healthily." Then something begins to click, you can literally see the cogs turning, "But he's never spoken to Donna about this woman…he normally lords it over her. Why wouldn't he do that? He'd want to drink from the keg of glory…unless she was dating someone as well, but then he'd do it even more, unless it was him." None of us even pretend to follow his train of thought.
"How do you know that?" I ask, for someone who doesn't seem interested in Josh's private life Toby seems to know a lot.
"Ginger told me the other day." Toby shrugs.
"Can we get back to the subject at hand?" Leo asks exasperated, "CJ what about you?"
"If I'd known I might have been able to come up with something a bit better when I was asked about it don't you think?"
"Yes, I do. Sam?"
Sam doesn't say anything for a while.
"Just remember that unless you answer me I'll find some way to detain you tonight so that you can't take Mal out."
Sam still doesn't say anything, he can't betray his friend and besides he knows that if he calls Mal she'll come down and sit in with him.
"Sam?" Leo demands.
"Sam you do understand that we're going to take your silence as an agreement anyway. We don't need you to tell us that he's screwing her, we can tell from the look on your face. " Toby points out.
"He's not screwing her." Sam says quietly.
"What do you mean he isn't screwing her?" Leo looks confused.
"He loves her. Screwing is something you do with someone you don't care about. Josh and Donna aren't having some little affair, they're in an relationship. Whatever your feelings are on the subject you should treat that with some sort of respect." Sam looks defiant, in that look we can see how much he cares about Josh and Donna, and how much he knows they care about each other. Love each other.
"Whether he loves her or is just screwing her we can't handle this right now." Toby says practically, "We've had Leo's scandal, Sam's scandal, the MS scandal. We don't need this."
"Exactly we've had their scandals, and mine. Did we loose Leo? Did we loose the President? Did you fire me? No. Why is it different for Josh and Donna?"
"Because Sam. Caesar's wife, like the rest of his family, must be above suspicion."
"But none of us above that. We're in politics, we're in the White House. This administration is never above suspicion."
"We are this time Sam. Look at our approval rating, it's rising every day. We hit the low sixties the week before last, we can't afford to trade that in."
Leo hasn't spoke, neither have I. We're watching this interchange like a tennis match. See Toby has the upper hand right now but if Sam keeps at it then he might be able to take it from him.
"We wouldn't have the approval rating without Josh and Donna. Josh is the unofficial Chief-Whip, you know that. We couldn't have passed the Education Bill without him, or the Health Care bill, or the Tax Bill. And that's this year alone. Only CJ has as much effect on the rating as Josh does."
"I wasn't suggesting we fire Josh." Toby says slowly.
Leo wants to speak, he wants to tell Toby that it isn't his position to suggest that anyway, but to do so would lessen Sam's chances of winning this.
"Who were you suggesting we fire then?" Sam is going to make him say it.
"Donna." Toby has the good grace to look guilty.
"First of all Toby do you realise how that would look? We'd be giving permission for every boss in the country who is having an affair with someone who worked for him to do exactly the same thing. We'd be lessening the rights of workers everywhere. I think that would have more of an effect on the ratings than the story will. It wouldn't save us any face. Women's rights groups would be on us so fast we wouldn't be able to formulate a defense, Equal Rights groups, Secretarial Unions and groups. Secondly you do realise that without Donna Josh might just walk out. If he didn't the standard of his work would take a dip for a while at least, don't you remember when she left us on the campaign? Josh didn't come to half the internal meetings, he didn't leave the office till three and was always back by six. He works himself to a frenzy when she isn't there to stop him. He'd burn out too soon. We can't afford for that to happen. Thirdly, I know you might not care but firing Donna might spell the end for them as a couple. Josh would feel guilty, he'd feel that it was her fault that she was without a job. He'd withdraw himself from her, work even longer hours. Donna can put up with a lot, she has put up with a lot, but when Josh gets like that you need to be around him all the time to stop him slipping. And she wouldn't be allowed to do that because she would have to find another job."
"Sam it's just not practical."
"It's just not practical?" Sam echoes with a look of disbelief, "Why isn't it practical?"
"It's going to look bad."
"Because firing Donna wouldn't look at all bad."
"But C.J. just told the press there was nothing going on, it either looks like she's lying to them or that she doesn't know what's going on."
"She didn't know what's going on." Sam points out, "And the quote was wrong; they aren't screwing each other and they haven't been doing it since the beginning."
"That's just a technicality of language." Toby's lost.
"Toby what do you do for a living?" Sam asks pleasantly.
"I work at the White House as the Director of Communications."
"And what do you do?"
Toby doesn't really know where he's going with this, "I present the image of the President to the people, I work with TV stations, I organise appearances, I write speeches…" he trails off at the look on Sam's face.
"You write speeches." Sam repeats, "You know as well as I do what the technicality of language can do. "
Toby grunts, this hasn't been a good day for him not only did he not work it out he just got beaten by Sam. If this was any other day I'd have taken pictures and videos of this just for future reference.
"If I can have control of this meeting back-" Leo says briskly, trying not to smile, "We need to figure out what to do."
"I still say we should ask her to leave." Toby says quietly.
"No." it's Leo that shoots him down this time, "We need Donna, we need Josh and most importantly they didn't do anything worthy of being fired."
"They had an affair, he's her boss."
"I'm aware of that and rest assured they will both get a talking to when the come in. We can't decide to fire them right now."
"Why not?" I ask, I thought Leo was on their side a little.
"We have to ask the President what he thinks, after all they're his staff."
He's got a point there, but we don't want to have to involve the President. We want to keep him out of it so that if someone asks, "what does the president think?" we can say that this is being dealt with by Leo McGarry and that the President has more important things to worry about than the lives of his personal staff. We want to keep him out of it because he might not be rational about it and we need to be rational right now. The President is the brightest man I know but he'll either decide that Josh and Donna are to be left be entirely or he'll over react. Or he just won't care.
"So are we talking to them first or to the President first?" Toby's tone comes close to sulky
"Josh and Donna," Leo replies, "We need to get their story straight before we go talk to the President, we need to hear what they've got to say for themselves."
We sit in silence for a while, Leo is glowering at nobody in particular, Toby is looking around for his rubber ball, Sam is trying not to look at anyone and I'm trying not to think what will happen next. Thankfully the silence is interrupted by a knock on the door. Leo walks over and pulls it open, "In. Now."
We troop in silently, the two of us have been hauled up to face trial by our peers. My peers I guess, Donna would never consider herself on the same level as any of the people in this room. She's perfectly clear that she's the Deputy Deputy to everyone in here, no matter how much I try to persuade her otherwise.
I'm wondering if we should say anything, whether we should stand in a certain place. CJ, Toby and Sam are spread out around the room, they stand where they always do. On instinct I move towards my place but Donna's hand on my arm stops me just in time. That hand earns her a glare from Toby, CJ is studiously ignoring it and Sam has the smallest of smiles on his face. I know what each of them want to do, and for once I'm glad we never can agree on anything right away.
"Before you say anything Leo-" I start but Donna's hand tightens its grip on my arm and I stop short, I'm already regretting saying that. Trust her to stop me before I embarrass myself further.
"What is it Josh?" Leo asks irritably
"I…erm…" I am at a loss for words. I, Joshua Lyman of 760 verbal SAT fame can not begin to think what it was I wanted to say. If I'm honest I'd only planned the 'before you say anything' bit.
"We're sorry we didn't tell you." Donna's voice cuts over mine, I wish it hadn't I don't want her to be on the end of what will be coming out of Leo's mouth in the next few minutes. Damn it Lyman why couldn't you have stepped up to the plate and taken it like a man?
"Sorry?" Toby exclaims, "You're sorry that you didn't tell us. Believe me Donna the fact that you didn't tell us is the least of your issues right now."
"Toby!" C.J. chides him, she glares at him in that way of hers. Boy am I glad it's not me she's glaring at…oh wait she's changing her gaze…look away Lyman…look away…damn she's locked eyes with me. She's glaring at me now.
And amazingly I'm holding her glare, I'm gazing back calmly and its all because of the hand that has slipped into mine. She's done it so surreptitiously that I doubt whether anyone else noticed, not that I'd care if they had, Donna's hand gives me strength - it's a nice little synecdoche because really its knowing that Donna's there that gives me strength. Well whatever it is all I know is that a few months ago CJ's glare would get me to admit state secrets and now I can return her gaze without flinching.
And so it is that for the first time in history I out stare Claudia Jean Cregg.
End Chapter Two
AN: Okay so this didn't really go anywhere but it was my CJ ramble. Next chapter I'm going to actually get in some proper J/D moments. Promise.