Donna didn't get home till midnight that night. If it had been the Bartlet White House, she thought dully, she wouldn't have been able to go home at all. She should be grateful—she was exhausted—but it didn't feel right. Something terrible had happened that day, and surely the White House staff should be working round the clock to find out why and what might be going to happen next, and doing something to try to stop it. The Secret Service and the N.S.A. and even the Joint Chiefs probably were, but she'd been told to go home. Not by Will or Porter, who had disappeared along with the President and a number of other key staff, but by the Deputy Head of Communications, a young man named Stanfield Ricks, who was technically her equal on the staffing tree but seemed to have suddenly been invested with authority over the remaining White House staff. After the building had been attacked they'd all been evacuated to the Pentagon, where she'd given her morning briefing to the members of the press corps who'd been able to assemble there. The President and the key senior staff had been whisked off to an undisclosed location; Stanfield told her, rather breathlessly, that to avoid becoming a target they were flying around the country in Air Force One. She'd finally gotten to speak to Will, who'd refused to confirm where the President was or to tell her when the President was planning to address the country. She'd argued vehemently that he should do it right away, but couldn't get any kind of commitment out of Will. She had the distinct impression that the White House Chief of Staff was confused and out of his depth. Which was frightening, because if Will wasn't sure what to do, she was absolutely certain President Russell didn't, either.

Not that she didn't feel confused and inadequate herself—she did, desperately—but she was sure of one thing, that they needed to give the country and the world the impression that they were prepared for this and knew what they were doing. "I can't keep going back to the press and telling them I don't know anything more," she protested to Will. "And the country doesn't want to see me—they want to see the President." "Well, they can't see him, not now," Will had answered. She could hear the tension in his voice even over the less-than-perfect air-to-ground connection. "He's all right, isn't he?" she'd asked, the alarm rising in her voice. "He wasn't hurt," Will said, which relieved her at the time, but struck her later as being a rather odd way to phrase that answer. She wondered what the President's condition was, and why Will wouldn't listen to her attempts to convince him that the President had to go on the air. Russell might not have been injured physically, but it occurred to her now that a man of his not-very-distinguished abilities might quite possibly be rendered incapable of performing the requisite part of the firm and able leader in a situation like this, perhaps even incapable of doing anything at all.

It was 10:30 when Stanfield told her he'd just been talking to Porter and been told that they'd hear nothing more that night and should go home. Her car was still at the White House, and getting a taxi at the Pentagon at that hour would have been a difficult tactical operation even on an ordinary day. Finally one of the young aides offered to drive her. He was going back, he said when he dropped her off, which made her feel even more as if the world had tipped upside-down when a twenty-something Navy lieutenant needed to be on duty in a time of national crisis, but the White House Press Secretary didn't.

She was so tired she almost gave him the wrong address. She still wasn't used to living where she did: she'd moved just before the Inauguration into an elegant townhouse in Georgetown, which she was renting—she couldn't afford to buy yet—from a member of the diplomatic corps who was overseas. It hadn't come furnished, but she'd sent most of her old stuff to Goodwill and used her new salary and her new credit limit to buy a few good things. The effect was sparse but stylish, suiting the architecture, with its high ceilings and deep moldings and gleaming floors, and suiting her new position as well. That the house was just a couple of blocks from Josh's old one had, until recently, been a point she'd studiously ignored. She thought of it now, though, as she climbed wearily out of the car and started up the stairs to her door. If only he was still living there, she thought, she'd throw caution to the winds and go to him. She'd missed him desperately for the past few weeks, but never more than she did right now.

She hardly noticed the sound of a car door opening and shutting, or the footsteps coming up the sidewalk behind her. He said her name, softly, just as she was putting her key in the lock, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Josh! What on earth? What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"Shhh," he said. "I came to see you, of course. I've been waiting in my car. But if you don't want the neighbors to know, we should go in."

Donna felt the most ridiculous surge of joy as she opened her door and let Josh in. It had been the most frightening, bewildering, terrifying, utterly awful day, but suddenly she felt as if everything was going to be all right. She knew that was absurd—there was nothing Josh could do to change what had happened, and probably not much he would be able to do about anything that was still going to happen, either—but seeing him, hearing his voice, feeling his arm slip around her as they stepped into the house made her feel as if her corner of the world at least was still whole and well. It made her feel safe. There had, after all, been one day in her life that had been worse than this one, and she was indescribably grateful that she hadn't had to end this day sitting in a hospital waiting to hear whether the man beside her would live or die.

She flipped on the light, and turned to look at him. The safe feeling slipped a little, and her heart lurched.

"You look awful," she blurted out.

"Thanks, Donna. Just what I was hoping to hear after driving all day to see you," he answered, smiling a little.

"Josh, what have you been doing with yourself? You look worn out."

"It's a long drive. And I might have been a little bit, you know, concerned about what was happening."

"You look more tired than that; you look like you haven't slept in days. And you've lost weight."

Josh shrugged. "I'm fine, Donna. It's how you are I'm worried about."

"I'm okay."

"Really?"

"It's been quite a day, but yes, really, I'm okay. Or I will be. But all those people . . . . Oh God, Josh, I'm so glad to see you," and she threw her arms around him. Their lips met, and neither of them breathed again for quite some time.

"That's good," he murmured, when they came up for air. "I thought maybe you'd changed your mind or something."

"Don't joke about that, Josh. You know I haven't changed my mind."

"Even though I look awful?" He dimpled at her, but she realized suddenly that he hadn't been joking.

"Josh, you weren't really worried, were you? That I'd changed my mind, I mean?"

He shrugged again and smiled, a little ruefully, but she could see the answer in his eyes.

"Oh Josh," she said, "I'm sorry. I thought you understood."

"I understand that you're a beautiful woman on her own in a city full of gomers," he said, trying to make light of it, "being stared at by the entire White House press corps every day."

"It's only Helen Thomas you've got to watch out for," Donna said, picking up his tone, even though she still felt stricken. "I've got a thing for her, you know."

"Everybody's got a thing for Helen Thomas," Josh said. "The question is, does she have a thing for you?"

"You're supposed to pretend that everybody has a thing for me."

"Every straight man has a thing for you, and probably every gay woman, but I've always had the impression that Helen prefers men."

"So do I," Donna said, leading him towards her couch. "One man," she added, stopping his comeback before he had a chance to make it and stopping anything else he was going to say by kissing him again. After that it was a very long time before either of them was able to say anything coherent at all.

oooooo