Smile

by: Kelley

Rating: TEEN
Category: A/U, general, Josh/Amy, [just for a little while], D/other, J/D
Spoilers: Anything through the first three seasons is fair game but I’ll try to stick to pre-"Stirred".
Disclaimers: I have absolutely no claim to these West Wing characters whatsoever, no matter what the voices inside my head say. As for any other references to pop culture I may make that I don’t own, I am a lowly high school student with a C+ average, no money, and a highly overactive imagination so please don’t sue! Emma Wilder, Ben Peterson, T.J. Moss, Nicole Moss-Braun, Lily Irving, Mena Falansio, and Dr. Michael Flynn are entirely my creation and I retain all rights to exclusively use them in my fics.
Feedback: I will shave a monkey’s uncle for feedback, baby!
Notes: The story starts after the Democratic National Convention, where the president was re-nominated and is pretty much A/U. There will be flashbacks that will be marked with *****. The president finally hired a replacement for Mrs. Landingham and he chose Donna. Since she, like the rest of us, can’t stand to see Josh with Amy she took the job. Also Bruno, Connie, and Doug never existed in this universe. Other than that, everything’s pretty much as is.

Donna’s Room: The Next Morning

Donna awoke the next morning to find the first rays of sunlight peeking in through the blinds of her windows. She turned her head towards the window and saw the dark sapphire color of the night sky slowly fade into a soft orange as the sun made its presence known. Donna struggled to lean up on her elbows to try to catch a better glimpse of the sunrise. It was so simple yet so beautiful at the same time. Donna tried to remember the last time that she had ever just watched it. She was disappointed, though none too surprised, that she couldn’t. She couldn’t remember ever really watching a sunrise or sunset, ever just watch the waves crash gracefully on the ocean, ever notice the splendor of the rustic woods where her family had had a vacation cabin. She’d always been too busy with something or another to just take the time to appreciate what was around her. Now, lying in a hospital bed for hours on end with nothing to do, Donna saw what she never really had before, appreciated what she always took for granted.

The sky finally glowed fully with the luminance of the sun and Donna closed her eyes and heaved a tender sigh. She prayed, something she had seldom done before getting sick, and gave thanks for everything that was before her. When she opened her eyes, she turned her head and saw Josh sprawled out on the small sofa that had been moved into her room, upon the President’s request which had stemmed from numerous staff complaints that there was nowhere to sit in Donna’s room when they visited.

Donna thought back to the previous night and felt a tingle race up her spine. She still couldn’t believe what had happened. Josh had told her he loved. Joshua Lyman, Mr. Hit- and-Run himself, had said that he loved her. There had been no warning, no precursor, no indication in the past few days whatsoever that would have led Donna to believe that he was going to confess that to her. It had all been so sudden. First he sat next to her, than he looked at her, next he had kissed her, [an action Donna’s lips still hadn’t fully recovered from, as they still quivered when she merely thought about it!], and finally, he said he loved her. It had almost been too much for Donna to absorb. Thankfully, Josh had lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence afterwards and he had just continued to look at her with a small smile on his face. She couldn’t even begin to vocalize her feelings on that subject so she had instead told him she was tired and had turned and pretended to fall asleep. Eventually, Josh moved to the couch where he had fallen into a peaceful slumber. Now that it was morning again, they would have to deal with the repercussions of his actions and Donna knew that this was the worst possible time for them to be having any kind of discussion on the matter. There were so many obstacles in their way, least of which was her illness and his relationship with Amy.

Donna was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts when the door slowly opened and a nurse appeared pushing a wheelchair.

"Morning Donna," said the nurse, Lorraine, while pushing the wheelchair towards the side of Donna’s bed. "Dr. Flynn got here early this morning and wants you to start your transfusions at 6:00 rather 7:00. That okay?" Donna simply nodded to the affirmative and motioned her head towards the still sleeping Josh while raising a finger to his lips. She couldn’t remember what was on his schedule today but she could tell from how he looked last night that he needed the rest. With assistance from Lorraine, Donna slowly and quietly got out of bed and into the wheelchair. They left the room and began down the nearly deserted hallway towards the treatment room. Dr. Flynn was waiting for them when they arrived a minute a later.

"Well good morning to you, Dolly," the doctor said playfully, walking up to her. Ever since they had gotten into a discussion on movies a few days before, Dr. Flynn had nicknamed her "Dolly" after the title character of her favorite movie, Hello Dolly.

He was dressed in his standard wardrobe: blue jeans, a tucked in, buttoned flannel shirt, running shoes, and white lab coat. If it wasn’t for the lab coat, Donna might have guessed him to be a construction worker, like her father had been. He was in remarkable shape and the only thing that gave away his advanced years was the thinning white hair. If he hadn’t told Donna himself that he was going to be sixty-five next month, she never would have guessed. Michael Flynn was always intelligent but he had moments of silliness. He knew his patients couldn’t stand to around a serious bore all day and Donna was grateful that he recognized that. If he had been like that, she would have driven herself crazy by now.

"Same to you," she teased with a smile, "Dr. Lecter. Eat any good kidneys lately?"

"I prefer pancreases," he shot back with a humorous leer. "You want to get started?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope. Now onto the bed we go missy."

"Geez," replied Donna sarcastically, moving her feet off the rests, "I usually get at least a drink and a meal before a guy tells me that."

Bending down, he went to move the foot rests of the wheelchair so she could get up. Lorraine was busy checking the IV bag that hung from the pole on the chair. The two medical professionals then helped her out of the chair and onto yet another hospital bed. Once she was settled in, Lorraine hung the IV from the bed pole and Dr. Flynn hung the first of the three bags of packed red blood cells that would be transfused into her body that morning. Later that afternoon, she’d have to do this all over again with three more bags. While the process was not painful, it was time consuming. One treatment could take up to three hours. During the afternoons, she could have visitors come down with her to keep her company but during the mornings, she was usually alone. Dr. Flynn spent what time he could with her, as did the nursing staff, but there were other patients and duties to attend to besides her.

"All right, you’re good to go," said the doctor, inserting the tiny tube of the bag into the other IV on her left hand. Lorraine nodded and left, saying she had to get home to get her kids ready for school. Lorraine worked the night shift and that was unfortunate since she was Donna’s favorite nurse. The other two nurses, Ashley and Miranda, were polite enough but they just didn’t have that motherly quality that Lorraine had.

After Dr. Flynn and Donna both bid her goodbye, he turned back to Donna. "Listen, I have an M&M review board I have to get ready for. I’ll come check on you later. Okay?"

"Sure," Donna nodded.

"Good. Just try to get some more rest."

"Oh, like I haven’t been doing enough of that lately," Donna responded dryly, rolling her eyes. Dr. Flynn smiled at her and walked towards the door.

"You know something," Dr. Flynn added from the doorway. "Your sister is right." He paused for effect. "You really are a brat." He winked at her and walked away, not quite closing the door behind him.

Donna leaned back and tried to relax as much as possible. She was still tired but she found it hard to sleep when going through treatment, no matter how drowsy she was. Nonetheless, she was going to make a valiant effort this time. She knew when she spoke to Josh again; she’d need all the strength she could get.

Donna sighed, closed her eyes, and tried to adjust to the silence. There were no other patients receiving treatment at the moment and it made her uncomfortable being alone in this room, going through this treatment alone, possibly dying alone. Before Donna could get too deep into her thoughts, there was a knock at the door. She figured it was Nicole since the nursing shift didn’t change until 6:30.

"Nicole," she said, keeping her eyes closed. "You don’t need to be here for every single..."

"Its not Nicole, Luv," said the familiar voice with the unmistakable British accent. Donna opened her eyes as the door opened and exposed Lily Irving, her oldest and best friend. She stood to her full height of 6’2’’, a travel bag in each hand, and her always-present brown-knit cap concealing the bushel of black curls that adorned her head. "So," she continued with a twinkle in her eye, dropping her bags on a chair near the door and pulling off the cap, "How ya been?" she asked lightly.

Donna laughed out loud and beckoned her over to the bed. "Get over here, you!" she squealed with delight, encompassing her friend in a hug with her free arm. "Oh, it’s so good to see you again. Now what the hell are you doing here?" she finally asked when they parted.

"Well," started Lily, pulling a chair to the side of the bed, "I was in Paris last week covering the Prime Minister’s wedding to some twenty-something, chippy who dropped trough for some horror flick and became the next "It Girl", for my magazine..."

"And when you say ‘magazine’," Donna cut in sarcastically, "you mean, of course, that cheap eyesore of weekly gossip that you work for which is run by greedy corporate executives and half-witted teeny bopper wannabes whose only purpose in life is to sell trivial, Hollywood chitchat as opposed to actual, you know, news?"

"Of course," responded Lily, not missing a beat. "Anyways, after the wedding, I went off with this gorgeous, nineteen year-old waiter, who had a body that just wouldn’t quit, to my hotel room upstairs and..."

"You didn’t?!" Donna cried out, still surprised at her friend’s antics after all this time.

"You right, I didn’t," Lily conceded, with good-humored sigh. "What really happened was after the wedding, I decided I needed a break for a few days so I went to my father’s flat in the country while he and the fourth Mrs. Charles Garrison Irving were in Tahiti and crashed there for a bit. Low and behold, when I returned to London, there’s a message on my machine from none other than the She Monkey."

"Otherwise known as ‘Nicole’?" Donna interjected.

"Whatever floats your boat," Lily shrugged. She paused and looked at Donna seriously. "I called her back, she explained what was going on, I caught the first flight out of Heathrow last night and here I am." She folded one arm on the bedrail and placed her chin on her forearm. She grasped Donna’s free hand lightly with the other hand. "So honestly, how are you?"

Donna gave her a tiny half smile. "I’m really starting to get to sick of that question, you know."

Lily looked at her pointedly. "Humor me," she said dryly.

"Not that great," Donna admitted, all traces of playfulness gone from her voice. "This all just happened so quickly." She paused, debating between giving Lily her standard answer of ‘I’m alright’ or the truth, finally choosing the truth only on the basis that she had never been able to hide anything from Lily. "It doesn’t even feel real, it feels like it’s happening to someone else."

Lily nodded. "What does the doctor say?"

Donna shook her head gently. "It doesn’t look good, Lil," she said softly. She tried in vain to choke back the sobs that were creeping up her throat but it was to no avail. "I’m so scared," she sobbed, finally releasing all the fears and anxieties that she had kept bottled up. Lily leaned up and wrapped her arms around Donna’s heaving shoulders, rubbing her back gently and shedding some quiet tears along with her. 

After a few minutes, Donna’s sobs eased off and she detangled herself from Lily’s embrace. She wiped at her eyes with her, as did Lily. Donna was glad that she finally released some of the tension that was inside her but now she realized that the conversation had gotten far too serious for her liking. She racked her brain to try to find something else to talk to Lily about. It was then that she remembered something that had been gnawing at her brain for the past few hours.

"Hey, you’ll never guess what happened," she said, her voice a little raspy from the recent bout of tears.

"What?" asked Lily, reaching over to snatch two tissues from a box on the side table. She handed one to Donna and used the other to try to stop the black streaks of mascara from flowing down her face.

"Thank you," Donna said, reaching for the tissue. After she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, she turned back to Lily and continued, "Take a guess."

"Oh, I don’t know," Lily said, leaning back in her chair. "World peace was declared sometime in between when I boarded my plane and when I arrived here?"

"No," said Donna with a small smile. "Not that extreme, but it is something that good and that complicated."

"Oh for God’s sake, just spit it out Luv," Lily said with a groan. "You know I can’t stand these guessing games that Yanks like you seem to..."

"Josh told me he loves me," Donna interrupted, not looking Lily in the eye and instead focusing on the light sheet that covered her lower body.

Lily was shocked to say the least. "I beg your pardon?" Lily said after a minute.

Donna looked over at her friend and had to giggle at the flabbergasted expression she wore on her face. It was probably how she had looked last night. "Yeah," she nodded, laughing nervously. "He just came into my room last night after my brother and sister left, told me he loved me, and fell asleep on the couch," she finished with a small grin.

"How very much like a man, tell a woman he loves her and crash for the rest of the evening," Lily said dumbly, thinking of nothing else to respond with. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," replied Donna, shaking her head. Looking at Lily’s confused face, she struggled to correct herself. "I mean it wasn’t entirely my fault. After he kissed me..."

"Wait a minute," Lily broke in while taking her shoes off. She then stood up and went to sit on the end of Donna’s bed near her legs, folding her legs Indian-style like when they were teenagers and gossiping when one of them was sleeping over the other’s house. "You never said he kissed you! You just said that he told you he loved you, there was no mention of kissing!"

"Well, there was a little kissing but only on his part."

"Define ‘a little kissing’."

Donna was at a loss for words. That was because there weren’t any words to describe how Josh had made her feel last night when he kissed her. She finally said, in a shy voice "It was the kind of kiss the groom gives the bride at the alter, after the priest pronounces them man and wife."

Lily sighed contently. "Oh Luv," she said softly. "This is so wonderful."

Donna bit down on her lower lip. "I guess it is," she said haltingly.

"Whoa, what do you mean ‘you guess it is’?" a surprised Lily asked. "Of course it is. This is what you’ve been wishing for years!"

"Not like this," Donna explained. "Not under these circumstances. Not when I work directly for him, not when he’s dating someone else, and certainly not when I’m...you know...like this."

"But this is how it was it meant to happen, Donna, don’t you see," said Lily, getting excited. "It was fate. Every single event in both your lives, every single moment led the two of you to that exact place and that exact moment because it’s your..."

"Destiny, yes I know and I thought that you gave up that New Age crap when you broke up with the masseuse," Donna said.

"This isn’t New Age crap and he was a spiritual healer, not a masseuse," Lily pointed out. "It’s how your life was supposed to turn out. Everyone has a path in life and your path has led you to Josh and his path has led him to you."

"And this great path that I’m on is also supposed to lead to me an early grave, isn’t it?" Donna shot back, looking away.

Lily brought her hand up to Donna’s chin and forced Donna to look her in the eyes. "We’re never given more than we can handle, Donnatella," she said with soft-spoken conviction. "We’re given challenges by whomever or whatever is responsible for us being here, I’ll give you that. But we’re also given the means to face them and the people to help us overcome them. This...this sickness wasn’t meant to punish you, it was meant to reward you. To show you all you have to be grateful for in life. Josh is one of those things. When you beat this, which you will by the way, the two of you are going to have a wonderful life together and this will all be a bittersweet memory."

"What do you mean by ‘bittersweet memory’?" Donna asked. "Believe me when I tell you this memory will be as bitter as a cranky old man on Halloween for me, if it even becomes a memory."

"This illness has caused you pain," Lily said, choosing to ignore Donna’s other comments, "but it also brought you and Josh together."

Donna pondered Lily’s wise words. They didn’t really make any sense to her but at the same time it did. "You really think I’m gonna beat this, Lil?" she asked curiously.

"I know you will," said Lily confidently. "And after all is said and done, I’ll be in the Rose Garden of the White House covering my best friend’s wedding to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for the European edition of the political commentary magazine, The Connection..."

"Oh stop it," Donna said bashfully, though now that Lily mentioned it, the Rose Garden was beautiful in the springtime.

"And then I’ll come back here for the holidays, were we’ll celebrate the triumph of the Americans stealing land from the Native Americans and we’ll attempt to cook an edible turkey..."

"I happen to be a very good cook, thank you very much," Donna scoffed.

"Then a year later I’ll return simply to tease you about being as big as a whale when you’re pregnant..." Lily trailed off, her skin paling beyond its normal white and the smile left her face, like she had just realized something. Donna had a similar reaction. She cast her eyes downward and brought her thumb to her mouth lightly chewing on the polished nail. "He doesn’t know does he?" Lily finally asked.

Donna sighed and looked at her. She silently shook her head. "None of them do."

"Well, you’re going to tell him, of course," Lily said hopefully. The look that Donna had on her face suggested otherwise. "Right?" When Donna didn’t immediately answer, Lily continued, "Donna you have to tell him. You can’t keep this a secret."

"I’ve kept it a secret from him for years now," Donna countered. "He’s never suspected anything, none of them have."

"I don’t understand," Lily said angrily. "You’ve worked with him and everyone else, side-by-side, for years and you’ve never had the decency to tell them?!"

"That’s right," Donna responded defensively. "I didn’t and I’ll tell you why; it wasn’t any of their damn business that’s why!"

"Well what are you gonna say when they want to know where the bone marrow came from?" Lily asked, having already researched aplastic anemia on her laptop computer on the flight and spoken to Donna’s doctor on her cell phone from the cab.

"Because that’s not where the marrow’s coming from," Donna answered delicately.

Lily was speechless. Her best friend had decided to play a game of Russian roulette with her life. "You mean you’re not going to fly her here to be tested?" she asked quietly. Donna shook her head. "I don’t believe this! You irresponsible coward! How dare you do this!" Lily got up and walked around the room for a minute, trying to keep her emotions in check. She was desperately worried about Donna but at the same time, she was now also royally pissed off at her. Lily finally asked, in a voice cold enough to freeze fire, "Does she even know you’re sick?"

"Lily," Donna said, struggling for control, "You know her. If I told Emma what was going on, she’d insist on being tested. And I don’t want her to do that, she’s too young. So I’m not calling her or Mena until this over with..."

"Why the hell don’t you want her tested?" Lily asked, her anger being replaced with shock.

"There are risks to the procedure..."

"Minimal risks, Donna, not enough to warrant..."

"Any risks are too many risks for her, Lily!" Donna proclaimed. She would have continued but the nurse came in to replace the empty bag of red blood cell with a fresh one. The nurse looked at the two women questioningly.

"Is everything all right in here?" she asked, having heard some heated words before she walked in.

"Everything’s all right," answered Donna. "Right Lily?"

 Lily shot her a withering glare. "Right as rain," she said stonily.

"Okay," said the nurse, glancing carefully at the two of them. "I’ll be back to check on you in a little while. I suggest that you two try to tone it down a little," she said sternly. With that, the nurse left and Donna and Lily lapsed into silence. It lasted until Lily could no longer bite her tongue back.

"You claim to love Josh," she started harshly. "You claim to love him with all your heart. You say you want to spend the rest of your life with him and apparently, now he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Yet you’ve been lying to him all this time." Lily paused for effect. "What’s he gonna think of you when he finds out?"

"I don’t know," said Donna truthfully. "But I made this choice and it was the right one. I’ll live with consequences of it."

Lily shook her head. "Or maybe you won’t live with them, that’s what I’m afraid of," she said passionately. She sat down on the bed, arms folded across her chest. "I don’t understand your feelings on this," she said after a minute, calming down a bit. "Frankly, I’ve never understood your feelings on this but that’s beside the point now."

"Well, what is the point then, Lily?" Donna asked, getting frustrated again. "Really, what has been your point in this entire conversation? 

"My point is," started Lily, "That she could save your life and you won’t even let her just because you’re scared of what everyone else is going to say or think about you."

Donna nodded slowly. "Yeah," she admitted. "I guess I am. They’ll probably hate me if they find out." Donna smirked at her. "Or I’ll be dead in which case, it’ll be moot anyway..."

"Donna, that is so completely unfunny," Lily retorted.

"Whatever," Donna shrugged. "I’m still not telling Emma and you can’t change my mind about it."

Lily stopped to look at Donna, who had a determined look on her face. The same look she saw on Donna’s face when she had made the decision five years before that had indirectly affected this argument. "Why not?" Lily asked, although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

Donna sighed and gave her a half smile. "Because I’m her mother and I say so."

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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