The next few days passed in a whirlwind of confusion for Donna, visits to the hospital to see Leo squeezed in between long, chaotic hours at the Pentagon, where she never quite felt as if she knew exactly what was going on. It was touch and go for both Leo and President Bartlet for a while, but they both survived and began to show some signs of progress towards recovery. The White House survived too: the plane had been shot at at the last minute by the Secret Service snipers and had veered off-course, plunging into the ground and exploding a short distance from the building near the visitors' entrance on the east side. Several staff members and some tourists had been injured in the explosion, but, miraculously, the pilot was the only person killed. The building had sustained some damage but the West Wing was unaffected, and the President finally came out of hiding and moved back into the Residence and the Oval Office, the same day Leo went home from G.W. The staff moved back with him. So, it seemed to Donna, did half of the U.S. military: Lafayette Square and the streets around the White House were closed, not just to cars but to pedestrian traffic as well, and soldiers with M16s and even grenade launchers were everywhere. It was unsettling, a constant reminder that the world around them had changed and might never be the same again.

The weeks that followed had a surreal quality unlike anything Donna could remember before. A few days after the air strikes on Qari'stan a videotape appeared on the internet, showing the head of the terrorist organization still alive and well, mocking the U.S. military and threatening further attacks. The next day the President announced plans to invade Qari'stan with ground troops if his deadline for surrendering the terrorist leaders and abandoning secret Qari'stani chemical and nuclear programs wasn't met. Congress hastily passed a War Measures Act, ceding its right to declare war to the White House, increasing the speed with which the F.B.I. and other security agencies could get warrants to conduct surveillance against suspected terrorists, and allowing them to hold suspects for up to four weeks without charge. There were more bomb scares around the country, and numbers on Wall Street were plummeting in response to the fear: no one wanted to spend any more time shopping than absolutely necessary, and everyone was avoiding Disneyworld and other high-profile tourist sites. The atmosphere in the White House was one of crisis: everyone around her seemed unbearably tense, tempers flared at the slightest provocation, and while decisions were being taken, she often found herself wondering how they were being made, and by whom. Will and Porter spent a lot of time shut up together in Will's office and, presumably—it was impossible to tell, with all the doors closed—in the Oval with the President, but something about Will's tone of voice and the way his jaw clenched when he was talking to Porter during Senior Staff made her think that relations between the Chief of Staff and his Deputy weren't exactly congenial. The Secretary of Defense was notable by his absence, and stories were beginning to circulate in the pressroom that he was being shut out of discussions about Qari'stan. More rumors were circulating about dissention between the Joint Chiefs. Donna did her best to handle the difficult questions gracefully, trying to keep up the atmosphere of good-natured mutual respect that had marked C.J.'s pressroom without revealing her own confusion or doubts.

She rarely saw the President, but she caught a glimpse of him one day when she went in to ask Mary, his secretary, something about his schedule for her briefing: the door to the Oval suddenly burst open and he was standing in it. His eyes looked unfocused and seemed to be blinking too often, and a muscle in the side of his face was twitching spasmodically. "Mary," he started, but then he saw Donna and shut the door abruptly in her face. A moment later the intercom buzzed, and Mary waved Donna out of the room. Donna was thoroughly alarmed, but that evening, before she went home, Mary called her and said the President wanted to speak to her. When she went in he was sitting calmly at his desk, his face perfectly composed. Porter was standing behind him. The President asked her a question or two about the mood of the press, sounding alert and normal, and asked her how she was managing with them.

"That's good," he said, when she told him she thought she was managing fine. "That's good. We need to keep the press on board with us. We're at war, you know. Don't let them forget that, Donna: we need the whole country behind us. And that means the press has got to stay behind us. If they're not with us, they're against us. And if they're against us, they're against this country. We need patriots, Donna, true patriots. We need a patriot press."

"Yes, sir," Donna said, wondering how she was supposed to accomplish this.

Porter spoke up then. "We're making some changes in the way things are done around here, Donna. Your job is to support them, and make sure the press does too. You might want to give more thought to which journalists you're calling on out there. You're giving too much attention to the wrong people; why are you calling on Helen Thomas, when you know Jeff Franks will give you an easier time?"

The President nodded gravely. "Call on the ones who want to support their country, Donna," he said. "Call on the patriot press. They're the ones we need."

Donna flushed and stammered something in agreement, suddenly overwhelmingly aware of the room she was standing in and who was rebuking her. Porter took her by the elbow and led her to the door.

"A loyal, patriotic press, and a loyal, patriotic Press Secretary," he said, giving her a hard look. "Not a naive, idealistic junior assistant. The President likes you, Donna, but we can't afford to keep anyone around here who isn't up to doing the job. There are going to be a lot of changes around here. Show us what you can do." He squeezed her elbow then, hard, and passed her through the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

The next morning, Porter handed her an announcement as she was walking into the press room: the Secretary of Defense had offered his resignation "for personal reasons," and the President had accepted it. In his place the President was proposing Patrick Swayne, a Republican from Rhode Island. At the bottom of the announcement Porter had written, "Call on Franks, Hogarth and Green." Donna hesitated. The storm of voices shouting her name grew louder. Helen Thomas was at the front, calling her name with the rest. Donna looked at her for a long moment, then took a deep breath. "Jeff," she said, motioning to Jeff Franks.

"Is this appointment an indication of the President's bipartisanship?" he asked.

Donna let out her breath in relief, and smiled. "Yes, Jeff," she answered. "President Russell understands that this is not a time for partisan dissention, but for all Americans to come together and work for the safety and security of their country. . . ."

oooooo

Josh had a routine. He worked from home during the morning, calling in to his office in New York, kicking ideas around and making meetings by email and phone. He usually checked in with President Bartlet in New Hampshire, too, although Abbey kept an eagle eye on their calls and told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to get Jed excited or worked up about anything at all. Then he'd get a sandwich from the deli down the street and eat it while doing more work from his notebook. Every other day after lunch he'd head to the Watergate to spend half an hour talking to Leo; he would have gone more often and stayed longer, but Annabeth asked him not to. She also asked him to keep the conversation away from the news as much as possible: like Abbey, she was sure it was the stress of the recent events that had brought Leo's and President Bartlet's attacks on. Leo chafed at the restrictions, and Josh—remembering Donna's Rules—sympathized, but the man was still so obviously weak that, as he did with President Bartlet, Josh managed to censor the worst of what was happening in the world out of his conversation. The last thing he wanted was to bring on another attack for either of them, or do anything that might compromise their health.

After seeing Leo he often had meetings to discuss business for his foundation, but by late afternoon he was always back in Georgetown, his laptop and the makings of dinner in his backpack, letting himself into Donna's house through the back door with the key she'd given him. He'd been deeply relieved when she hadn't asked him to go back to Connecticut, but it still seemed like a good idea not to attract any more attention than he had to. Residents in Georgetown tended to be too involved with their own careers and social lives to notice what anyone else was doing, and Josh figured that any gossip-hunting photographer looking for a story about the White House Press Secretary would be far more likely to sit in front of her house than at the back, so he always walked through the alleys that ran between his house and hers. At four o'clock in the afternoon there was never anyone around, and the cars in their parking places were all familiar and predictable, obviously not hiding any cameramen. Stealth had never been his long suit, but he could manage that much of it, he thought; it was worth it, if it kept Donna from being upset by some interfering creep's gossip column, especially now.

When he got to Donna's house he would settle down with his laptop and cell phone for a while to finish up his own work, and then start getting dinner ready. Cooking was one of the things he'd surprised himself by discovering he liked when he was consciously trying to change his habits and build a more sustainable life for himself in Connecticut. It was like painting the walls, something relatively simple and easy to do that brought a disproportionate feeling of accomplishment with it, and seemed to bring some balance to his life that he realized he'd been badly in need of for a very long time. He liked knowing he was bringing some balance to Donna's life these days, too. Her schedule was a lot more stressful than it used to be: she got home anytime between eight and eleven most days, and he had to plan dinner around that, but he loved the way her face always lit up when she came in the door and smelled whatever he had going on the stove. He'd pour her a glass of wine, and she'd kick her shoes off and sip it while he put the last touches on the meal and served it. They usually ate in the living room, relaxing on the couch with her feet in his lap while they talked about what had happened that day.

If he was dismayed by anything she told him he tried to keep it to himself. Accepting the fact that Donna could make different choices than he would and could support a man he found insupportable had been one of things he'd had to work hardest on with Sue Thornton last summer, but he'd done it. He still didn't think that Bob Russell should be President, but he'd managed to forgive himself, at least in part, for not having won the nomination for someone better, and Sue had made him do a lot of thinking about why Donna might have made the decisions she had when she'd left him to work for Russell, and had got him to see how self-destructive it was to expect anyone to mirror his views exactly, even on something so important. That had been before Russell had won the White House and Donna had become his Press Secretary, of course, but Josh knew the lessons still applied, and he wanted to support her, whether she was doing what he would have done or not. Which was, he reflected a little wryly one evening while he was making supper, another of the good things to come out of his nightmare last year: he'd done some growing up. He could feel the difference in himself, and he liked it. He still wanted to take Bob Russell and kick him across the Tidal Basin into the Potomac, though, so maybe he still had some growing up to do. Or maybe not.

But no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't keep his mouth shut all the time, especially when Donna seemed more than usually troubled by something at the end of the day. "What's up?" he asked her that night, noticing the worry lines on her face. She sighed, and settled down into the couch, kicking off her shoes. "We have a new Secretary of Defense," she said, knowing he'd already know that. He followed the news constantly throughout the day. She often wondered how much he missed working at the heart of things: a lot more than he let on, she suspected. She sometimes asked him when he was planning to go back, but his answers were always non-committal. When Bob Russell was out of the White House, she guessed, feeling the familiar stab of guilt she always got whenever she thought about the fact that her career advancement had cost Josh his. It hadn't had to, of course: he could have found work on the Hill easily enough, except that he'd been there and done that and, she suspected, didn't see anyone there he admired enough to want to work for. Earl Brennan was long gone; Hoynes had disgraced himself and was gone; and with Matt Santos back in Texas working on health care clinics and local school board issues, there weren't many shining lights among the Democrats these days. He could have worked at the White House, of course, if he had taken Will up on his offer and joined their campaign, if he hadn't been so stubborn about things. So stubborn and so idealistic. And so messed up inside by his twisted sense of responsibility and guilt about everything from Matt Santos losing the nomination to a Palestinian terrorist setting off a bomb in Gaza while she was there. . . .

"A Republican!" he said, unable to keep the distaste out of his voice. "What the hell are they thinking of, kicking out Brandt for a Republican?"

"Brandt resigned, Josh. He said he had personal reasons. Swayne has a lot of experience; we need someone in there that people can trust. And bipartisanship could be a good thing for us; we need to show the world that our government is united at a time like this."

"I'm not in your press pool, Donna. You know I know damn well Brandt didn't withdraw, and he didn't leave for personal reasons, unless getting kicked in the ass counts as personal. I gather he wasn't on board with the President over this Qari'stan thing?"

"I think he really did resign, Josh. He hadn't been in the loop for quite a while. Not since this whole thing started."

"If he resigned in protest, why's he being so mealy-mouthed about it and giving the press this 'personal reasons' crap? Why not take a public stand?"

"Maybe loyalty? Patriotism?"

"Loyalty! Patriotism! Donna . . . ."

"Yes, loyalty, Josh. Patriotism. We were attacked. We could be bombed or blown up again at any moment. We're at war. They attacked the White House, Josh; they attacked the President! George Brandt probably doesn't want to join forces with them by attacking him too."

"We're not at war yet, Donna."

"We really are, aren't we, Josh? It's a different kind of war, a new kind of war, this terrorism, but it's still war."

"Maybe, maybe not, but how is invading Qari'stan going to help?"

"The terrorists train there, Josh; the government funds them, even though they pretend they don't. The government has secret chemical weapons programs, they're developing nuclear weapons. They've got to be stopped."

"I don't know, Donna. They've probably got some kind of weapons program, sure, but if they do they're still a long ways from being a threat to us. President Bartlet was briefed about them all the time, and he always said they weren't a top priority at all."

"The C.I.A.'s saying something different now. They must have new sources, better info than they did before."

"I'm not so sure, Donna. We had good people working on this before, good information. None of the reports we're hearing make any sense. You know how crippled Qari'stan's economy has been. I can't believe they could have achieved that kind of capability yet, and we have no reason to think they'd use it against us if they did. Against Israel's a concern, maybe, but even that doesn't really fit with what we've seen from this man so far."

"He's done brutal things to his own people! He's a tyrant."

"He is, but the world is full of tyrants. War is a huge commitment, and usually ends up doing more harm than good. You know that. We have to prioritize; if they're not attacking us and they're not carrying out a genocide, we need to deal with them through other means. Diplomacy. Containment. Sanctions, maybe. The U.N. We can't just sail in and right every wrong in the world by ourselves; it won't work. And attacking an Arab country is the surest possible way to build more resentment against the U.S. and breed more terrorists who want to attack us."

"Qari'stan is attacking us; they trained the terrorists there."

"Did they? The ones we've been able to find anything out about all came from Qumar. And the Qumari radicals hate Qari'stan; Hakim may be a despot, but he's a secular despot who's built a secular society and works against almost everything they stand for. They loathe him; they want him overthrown. Why would he let them set up training camps in his bit of desert, or give them any support at all? If we want to find out who's funding fundamentalist terror, we should look at Qumar."

"Qumar is our ally."

"I know. And they've had a ton of oil and money, and we've never said boo to them because of it, even though they don't let women vote or drive and beat them if they get raped, or even if their headscarves slip and they show the world a little of their face or hair."

"We're their ally, too. Why would they sponsor terrorism against us?"

"It doesn't have to be a state-sponsored thing, you know. All it takes is some member of the royal family to hear God talking to him on the road to Mecca, and he's got all the money you could want to do whatever he thinks God is telling him to do, and no one's going to say anything, because he's a member of the king's family and you just can't do that in that society; if you're one of the royals, you can do pretty much what you want as long as you're discreet about it. The money wouldn't go directly to terrorists; he'd give it to some religious group, and they'd pass it on. Or she would. Not all the Qumari women see themselves as victims, you know; there are plenty who think every woman in the world should be wearing the chador in respect to Allah, and who'd like to see all you half-naked American sluts stoned for dressing the way you do."

"I'm a slut now, am I?" Donna tried to smile.

"A shockingly depraved slut, and I hope I'm going to get the benefit of your sluttishness sometime soon, you know."

She set her plate down on the coffeetable and leaned back against the cushions. No matter how tired she was, she was never too tired for what Josh did to her, and she really didn't feel like talking about any more of the things that had been worrying her today. Josh was at once the easiest person in the world for her to confide in, and the hardest; his opinion still mattered too much to her. For all she'd accomplished over the past couple of years, she still wanted his approval—and yet she wanted to be independent and make her own decisions too. She knew he didn't like the man she had helped make President or the way he was leading the country now, and she didn't know how to begin to tell him about the strange incident in Mary's office that day, or how the President and Porter had dressed her down in the Oval Office, or the confused mix of emotions she was feeling about her job and the way she was being asked to do it. She didn't even want to think about it, much less talk about it with him, tonight. She wanted to feel his closeness, not to be reminded of all the ways in which they were still separate and apart. "How about right now?" she said in her most seductive voice, reaching out with a foot to hook his waist and pull him towards her. He put his plate down too, and both of them found better things to think about than which countries might be sponsoring terrorism and what constituted valid reasons for going to war.

The next day the President announced that Qari'stan had proven intransigent in refusing to meet his requests, and U.S. troops rolled into the country from Qumar.

oooooo