Heartburn

by: Ygrawn

Character(s): Josh, Donna
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Disclaimer(s): The characters, nor the shoes, are mine.
Category(s): Romance
Rating: R, for some language
Summary: It was happening too fast. In her imagining, it was longer, drawn-out. Neater. Warmer.
Dedication: This is for all the people who kept asking about this story.

She thinks for a long time, that the decision was hers. She needs to believe that last act of independence was hers. She needs to believe that after the hundredth day of aloofness, the anger, and the rudeness - and finally the indifference - she decided staying wasn’t worthwhile.

And she needs to believe that she hasn’t run away from her problems; she's moved on to better things. College, a degree...a real life with normal hours, free weekends, public holidays, time to go to the movies, eat out with friends, spend Christmases at home with her family.

When people - mostly her sisters - ask about it, she shrugs and presents a seemingly careless smile that makes her teeth and jaw ache. She lies about mutual partings, no hard feelings, that she doesn't really miss it. It was only the White House, she casually says, and she had only been an assistant. She promises people that she's much happier now.

When CJ or Sam ask, Donna just shrugs and misdirects, thinking the whole time that he taught her how to do that.

Toby doesn't ask.

She tells her sisters, her parents, and her friends that the decision had been hers alone.

Every year in April, a bunch of flowers is delivered to her house, with no note attached. She pretends not to know what it means.

The day she graduates, summa cum laude, somebody sends her the Oxford English Dictionary. Not the concise version: the full twenty-three volumes. She knows how much it costs. There is a note attached, unsigned. It says, ‘Because you didn’t miss the Dean’s List two semesters in a row’.

It isn’t until her birthday, four years after leaving, when somebody sends her a backless red dress, that she finally admits the truth to herself.

Josh made the decision for her. At some asinine, irrelevant point in time - maybe during a meeting, whilst sitting in Leo’s office, driving to work, lying in bed at night - he decided she needed to leave. He’d made the decision and set about implementing it. He’d forced her away with his aloofness, his anger, and his rudeness. And finally his indifference. He had waged a campaign to push her away, keep her from himself, and he succeeded.

Josh succeeded at everything he did.

And so, the decision had never been hers.

She left the White House - left him - because Josh wanted her to.

The most ironic thing, the thing that keeps her awake some nights, is that he thought he was doing it for her benefit.

He wanted to protect her.

***

“I’ve never been in love before.”

She raises an eyebrow, still surprised at seeing him in her apartment. And yet, the non-sequitur doesn’t startle her. He hasn’t really said hello, but he’ll tell her he’s never been in love.

“What about Mandy?” Donna counters.

He shakes his head minutely. The muted light catches his hair and turns it gold-bronze. “I admired and appreciated her deviousness. I didn’t love her.”

“Amy?”

Josh just looks at her - at her, then through her, like he always has. “I acted...” he trails off, still unable to muster the words. He’ll never be able, he knows, to say the things that matter. He can’t put the words in the right order, not even in his head.

“You did,” Donna agrees.

He stands up and walks around the living room. He trails his fingers over the back of her couch; feels the spines of her books and smiles inwardly at the varied titles. From a dog-eared copy of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee to The Poisonwood Bible, to Backlash. He opens up the hard-covered, revised edition of Susan Faludi’s novel and sees an inscription in CJ’s lovely handwriting. Josh wanders over to the desk, and grazes Donna’s computer monitor with his fingertips.

It was a lesson he learnt from Leo, years ago. To control the room you have to own it. One of the fastest ways to own it is to invade it, touch it, and lay claim to it. It’s the least subtle method.

He will never be able, he knows, to muster subtlety around Donna.

“This is a nice place. Better than your last apartment.”

“I have a better-paid job,” she replies, with just a hint of challenge in her voice.

“With better hours, right?” Donna nods. “Less stress? Trips to Hawaii? A boss who doesn’t scream at you?”

She picks at the last one, like he knew she would. “I practically am the boss.”

“You don’t get to travel on Air Force One, though.”

“United Airlines isn’t so bad.” Josh eyeballs her. “Okay, it’s terrible.” He manages a half-smile. “No job should be the sum of its perks.”

“No,” he agrees. “It should be the sum of its salary.”

“You don’t believe that.”

Josh walks back around the couch, over to the desk again. It’s neat and organized, but overflowing with weighty files, press releases scribbled on with red pen, and endless articles. Separated from the mess though, is the photograph she knew he would eventually find. Donna often wonders why she kept it, but she knows the answer. She knows the answer to many things, she just won’t ask the questions.

“Who took that?”

“Sam.”

“It’s in...” he frowns for a moment, “Louisiana.”

It was from the campaign; the original one. They’d stopped the bus for lunch, bought sandwiches from a street vendor on the corner. Josh and Donna had been going through his schedule for the next few weeks, and the agenda he’d be pushing at upcoming meetings. They were sitting on a bench, surrounded by paper, hunched towards each other, eating lunch, deep in discussion.

They hadn’t seen Sam until after he’d taken the photo.

“He gave it to me a few years ago.” It wasn’t the best photo of them. There were others: the Inaugural Ball, other campaign stops, parties, and functions. They’d been photographed a lot, over the years, and she was still surprised that nobody had commented on that.

During her time at the White House, she’d always waited for that sickening day when somebody noticed Donna’s presence. Someone who noticed that she went places the other assistants didn’t; that Josh often stood in the corner of a room and consulted with her, not Leo or Toby or Sam.

That he seemed to touch her a lot.

But Donna loves this particular photo because they're looking at each other, not the camera. She loves it because Josh has an arm across her lower back, and their knees are touching. She loves it because he made her laugh, and her nose is crinkled up in amusement. She loves it because he is smiling for no particular reason.

She likes to think it's just because she was there.

“He’s down in Florida with the President,” Josh says.

“Sam? I know. He rang me last night from Miami.”

“Oh.”

“They fly back tonight, right?”

Josh nods and returns to the couch. “I, ah...I caught one of your press briefings the other day. The two o’clock on Thursday.”

She nods. “They wanted a response to CJ’s morning briefing. I think they always expect me to go personal.”

“You were good.”

She nods again. “I know.”

It’s mark of how much she’s changed. She doesn’t need Josh to tell her she was good. She knows it for herself.

“Well.”

“It looks like you guys will get 817 through the Senate. Congratulations. I know you worked very hard on that.”

She narrowly resists the urge to add “too hard”. Some things don’t change, but Donna reminds herself she doesn’t care about his diet, his exercise, or his stress levels. Every time she sees CJ she tries to enquire discreetly. She asks Sam flat-out. She doesn’t ask Toby.

“I didn’t come to talk about work,” Josh says.

“Why did you come?”

“Why did you leave?”

It was happening too fast. When she imagined this conversation - always on the edge of sleep, and sometimes when she was drunk - it never happened as fast as this. In her imagining, it was longer, drawn-out. Neater. Warmer.

“You know the answer to that better than I do,” Donna replies.

“I was poison, Donna.”

“That’s a little melodramatic.”

“I didn’t want to be...” he trails off. “I needed you to be separate from everything else. From the mess, and the scandal, and the cynicism.”

“So you isolated me? You cut me out of the loop? You were rude to me?”

“You know what I’m like.”

“I thought I did.” Donna sighs. “I get it. It took me a long time. You thought we’d go down, and you didn’t want me to go down with everyone else.”

“Yes, I believed we’d go down.”

“The rest of you made your own decision to stay, when you had other options. It was my choice to make, Josh. It should have been my choice.”

“Yes,” Josh agrees without hesitation. “It should have been.”

“So, why me? You didn’t push the others away.”

He looks at his shoes, embarrassed. “This is going to sound even more melodramatic, but you were my...thing.”

Her brow crinkles. “The word ‘thing’ doesn’t conjure melodrama to my mind, Josh. It conjures circular conversations with hidden code that only we understood, but not melodrama.”

“You were the thing that made me remember why I did my job. You believe things Donna. You believe in them. I just try to manipulate the way things are. You believe in what they should be.”

She’s silent for a beat, because she wasn’t expecting that. “I’m naďve and idealistic, you mean.”

“That too,” Josh grins. “But it was a good thing. It was an important thing to me. It was new, and fresh, and it made me happy to go to work. Knowing that you would be there to remind me what I fought for. And then...everything fell apart.”

“And you didn’t want me to lose my faith in the greater good, or be tainted by the fall-out.” Donna sighs again. “I lost my faith anyway, Josh.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.”

“But I - ”

“You don’t know,” Donna interrupts, her voice flat. “I didn’t have faith in things, Josh. I had faith in you. I believed in what you did. Going to the White House - what we did there - I saw it all through you. I believed what you believed about Bartlet, and what he was doing. And you pushed me away from that. You wouldn’t share it with me anymore.”

“That’s...” he trails off.

“Ridiculous. I know.”

“I was going to say touching,” Josh returns testily.

“You would.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You should have.”

“How?” he demands.

“Everybody else knew. Everybody else could see it. CJ, Sam, Toby, the President, the interns in Human Resources...probably even the janitors could see it.”

“I’m an oblivious man.”

Donna pauses another beat. “That’s very true.”

Josh lets his head fall back against the couch. “I knew.”

“Of course you did. You had to know, because your strategy to get rid of me was inspired, Josh.”

He turns to look at her, surprise marking his features. “Inspired? It was horrible.”

“Yes, it was. Being rude...I could handle that. Everyone who knows you is used to you being a rude jerk.”

“Thanks.”

“But the indifference? That was...that was the move of a master politician.”

“I never treated you like the opposition,” Josh says evenly, but the senses the hurt shifting underneath. “Not once. I never treated you like a political problem that had to be spun.”

“Really, Josh? Because I beg to - ”

“I’ve never regretted my behavior towards the opposition. It’s my job, and I thrive on it. You...I regret...”

“You regret that you had to train up another assistant.”

His face was pained. “You hate me that much?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You’re doing a damn fine impression.”

“That would be my drama minor.”

“Donna!”

She raises an eyebrow, determined not to lose her momentum to those eyes. “What?”

Josh swallows. “You believe I don’t miss you? Your presence? You were a good assistant - you were a brilliant assistant.” He pauses. “You were a better friend.”

”That’s what I wanted to be, but you wouldn’t let me.”

Josh stands, wanting to pace, move, but he grimaces with pain.

“Is it your back?” Donna immediately asks, standing hurriedly with him. She remembers her supposed indifference, but it’s too late.

Josh shakes his head. “My back’s fine. I’ve been...I’ve kept up my exercise.” She shoots him a disbelieving look. “I have. I run during my lunch break.”

“From the mess back to your office for a file?”

“I jog down near the Memorial,” he replied defensively. “Ask Sam. Or CJ.”

“Or Anna,” Donna suggested caustically.

Josh raises an eyebrow. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

“No.”

“Because I distinctly detected a note of jealousy in your voice when you said Anna.”

“Why would I be jealous of Anna?”

“She’s my assistant.”

“I should be commiserating with her.” Donna adroitly changes the subject. “If you’re so fit, why the grimace just before?”

He mumbles something incomprehensible, although Donna thinks she hears the word ‘outbid’.

“What did you say?”

“I fell out of bed,” Josh bursts out.

Donna’s voice is tight. “Do I want to ask what you were doing at the time?”

“Aside from sleeping?” Josh wryly asks.

“How does a forty-four-year-old man...”

“Forty-three,” Josh interrupts.

“How does a forty-three-year-old man fall out of bed?”

“With great skill.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yes. But I’m an idiot with a very sore torso.”

“I’m not giving you any sympathy.”

“And I’m not asking for any.”

“You get all you need from Anna, right?”

Josh makes a face of distaste. “Anna is a happily married mother of two boys in their late teens. One’s at college, and the other is in his final year of school. She has no patience for idiot boys - or men - who hurt themselves.”

Donna’s voice is subdued. “I didn’t know she...had kids.”

“You didn’t know she was older than me, or that she was married,” Josh corrects.

“That too.”

They stand in silence, Josh rubbing his side and wincing.

“Why did you tell me you’ve never been in love?”

Josh’s hand stills. “What?”

“You showed up on my doorstep after four years of silence, you barely say hello or ask me how I am, you sit down on my couch and tell me you’ve never been in love.”

“Seemed like something worth saying?” he ventures. In truth, he’s been carrying around those words for years.

“Okay.”

Donna lets it go, because the meaning behind those words is too close to reality of things: he’s never been in love before her.

“It wasn’t really four and a half years of silence,” Josh says.

“No,” Donna agrees. “You should have seen Sam’s face when he saw the OED.”

“I can well imagine.”

“It was...too much, Josh. It cost the same amount as the down-payment on a house.”

He shrugs. Josh always shrugs off his generosity. “Then consider it a down-payment on your brilliant career.”

Donna shakes her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I see you’ve been using my present.”

“It’s still too much. I mean...the others gave me beautiful presents, but...” she trails off.

“You didn’t work for the others.”

“No,” Donna agrees, but it's more than that.

Josh wanders back over to the bookcase. He’s searching for something; he knows it, and she knows it.

“It’s not there,” Donna says quietly, standing behind him. “The Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiing. It’s at my office.”

“Oh.”

“You thought I didn’t have it anymore?” She seems hurt at the idea.

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “I don’t know what I think. You know about Sam and Ainsley, right?”

Others would be thrown by the change in conversation. “I spend a lot of time with Ainsley. You know that.” Josh makes a face. “Oh, admit it, you like her too. Even if she is a Republican.”

“I don’t care about her being a Republican.”

“She’s stolen Sam away from you?” Donna guesses.

Josh rolls his eyes, although Donna thinks there’s probably a modicum of truth in that statement. Those two seem to own each other in a very strange, untouchable way. It always fascinated her, watching them when they were together. They barely noticed others. “She introduced you to Cliff Calley.”

Donna’s not used to such honesty from Josh. Not certain how to handle the straightforwardness from a man who’s spent a lifetime deflecting truth. Truth is an action; it moves things, and the speaker has to cede control. Josh has trouble doing that. And she’s frightened now, because if they take this path, there’s only one place it leads to.

“I’m...” she trails off.

Josh continues. “We went out to dinner the other night. Sam, Ainsley, CJ, Toby and I. We’d just got the nose count on 817, so we were celebrating.”

“I bet Toby loved that.”

“He got halfway through his lecture about tempting Fate, before CJ told him to shut up and have another drink. So he did.” Josh half-smiled. “It was nice. The dinner, I mean. Not Toby and his lecture. And Sam and Ainsley announced their engagement just before main course.”

Donna finds herself wishing she could have been there, to see Josh’s face, CJ’s exuberance, Toby’s gruff pride in Sam.

“What did Toby say?” she hears herself asking, and she knows that she’s missed it. It was all a lie. She misses it with every second breath, when she sees one of them on television doing the thing that lights them up inside, when she hears the President’s radio address, when she drives past the White House, or when she talks to Sam during office hours and she can hear Ginger laughing in the background.

Josh’s smile grows wider. “Nothing for a good minute. Then he said, ‘I’ll get to work on your speech, Sam’.”

“Ainsley and I had lunch yesterday; she told me then, and showed me the ring.”

“Sam sold a few of his organs to the black market to buy that ring,” Josh jokes.

“It’s a beautiful ring,” Donna agrees. Ainsley’s happiness was painfully sharp to watch, and she knows Josh feels the same way. Nobody, she thinks, is lonely until they see somebody else’s happiness.

“The President had to approve it before Sam bought it. Turns out the President’s an expert on diamonds.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Donna smiles. But Josh avoiding his point. This is not the conversation he wants to be having.

“After dinner, CJ and Toby wandered back up to the White House. My car was outside the restaurant, and Ainsley and Sam were headed in the other direction, to Sam’s car.” He pauses. “I watched them walking away, and Ainsley’s heel got caught on a grate.”

Donna nods knowingly; Ainsley and Sam are clumsy, perfectly matched people. They don’t fit together, because nobody really does, but their imperfections have melded to make something better.

Josh’s voice is quieter when he continues. “Sam bent down and retrieved the shoe from the grate, and put it back on Ainsley’s foot. I wanted that.”

Donna’s stomach turns, but she says, lightly, “You wanted someone to put a three-inch heel Manolo Blahnik on your foot?”

“No. I wanted something more than what I have.”

“I don’t understand.” But she does. Donna knows it because she feels it, reaches for it on unhappier days, only to remember that she left it behind.

“It’s not enough anymore, Donna, to go to work, and run a country, and go home and sleep for a few hours before doing it all again.”

“I bet the Republicans don’t say that.”

“Donna,” he reproaches softly. “You understand what I’m saying.”

“Yes. I understand.”

She wishes she could call this thing between them a dance. But a dance has order, a sequence of steps, a method, a grace and beauty. They used to dance together, shifting and changing rhythm seamlessly. This, now, is ugly and awkward and uncertain and they are both stumbling badly.

“When I saw Sam and Ainsley I knew I had to tell you.”

“So I get four years of silence, and now this?”

“You left me.”

“You made me.”

“You stopped waiting, Donna. That’s what we were doing. We were waiting until it was the right time. And you stopped waiting and chose something else.”

“If it you want something - if you really want it, all the way down to your marrow - you don’t wait for it.”

Josh is quiet. “No, you don’t wait.” He moves from the bookcase, to his coat, which is hanging over the back of the couch. He starts to pull it on.

“You’re going?” Donna asks. She’s surprised. And hurt. She doesn’t want to be.

“I didn’t expect anything when I came here.”

Her brow wrinkles. “You show up four years after I leave, you barely say hello, and then go round and round in conversational circles with me? And now you’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Josh says simply.

He can’t hold it in any longer, can’t bear the heartburn that’s been slowly killing him all these years.

“I know my job,” he continues. “And I’m good at it. I’m brilliant at it. But I don’t know how to do this. I’ve known you for nearly seven years now, and I don’t think I’ve done anything right between us. I just know that I need you to know that I love you. And also that I have really shitty timing.”

He leaves before she can say anything.

****

Josh doesn’t to home to bed; he goes to work and catches up on paperwork. Governments are paperwork and lying, but, in the darkest hours of the night, he gets to lie with them, and pretend that he didn’t just shoot himself in the foot. And the heart.

By the time he goes to Senior Staff he’s on his fifth coffee, but he still feels worn out. Josh doesn’t feel his age that often - it might be the jogging and the improved diet - but today he feels ancient.

He manages to keep track of the five-way conversational maze that is their morning meeting. If he misses even half a beat, they will know something is wrong. The others are bright. Well, CJ and Sam are. Leo is energized and Toby is Toby.

Toby has always been Toby. Josh and Sam and CJ shift and slide through themselves, letting their uncertainty direct them; they have never been themselves, just versions of who everybody else needed them to be. Toby never moves. He wears his many faces with an ease Josh has always envied.

Josh returns to his bullpen slowly, expecting, even four years later, that Donna will be waiting for him in the hallway with her expectant face.

Instead, Anna is standing at the photocopier, and she holds out his stack of messages as he passes by her on the way to his office.

CJ is waiting inside, leaning against his desk, and Josh idly wonders how she beat him back. Then he remembers her legs.

“What’s up, mi amor?”

He’ll never tell her, but he loves her name for him. He loves that they love each other, irritably and noisily on the surface, but with implicit and mutual respect underneath. He loves that great pool of gentleness inside her that she has reserved for Sam and Toby and him. He loves that she will never admit to it. He loves that CJ doesn’t take his shit.

“What do you mean?”

“I can smell it on you. You’ve done something stupid and now you’re regretting it.”

“I went to see Donna last night.”

He doesn’t see it coming, but when he gets smacked upside the head - hard - he’s not very surprised. “I take it you don’t think it was a good idea.”

CJ shakes her head. “Actually, I think it was a very good idea, but you probably said something stupid, and because Donna’s not here to hit you, I thought I should.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“You think it was a good idea?”

“That, after four years of silence, you don’t bother to call her, you just show up on her doorstep? Yes, I do.”

“Really?”

CJ sighs. “You’re not really Josh Lyman without her. You’ve just been pretending for four years.”

“I didn’t think anybody else had noticed.”

“Of course we have. Didn’t you see the memo?” CJ straightens and looms over him. “Did you tell her you love her?”

“What?”

“Did you tell Donna you love her?”

“I...” he trails off.

“Good, you did.”

“How...”

“As Sam says, your poker face isn’t that good. Every time someone says her name you make a face. You messed up. The whole time she was working for you, all you did was mess up.”

“You’ve been practicing this speech, haven’t you?”

“Yes, so don’t interrupt me. You messed up.”

“You’ve already said that. Three times now.”

“That was an interruption. You want it enough now. You want her enough now. So, you’ll get it right.” She moves to the door. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Josh looks over the teetering stacks of files on his desk. “Thanks, mi amor.”

“You’re welcome.” She pauses in the doorway. “Josh, the face you make when someone says her name?”

Josh wants to deny it, but he can’t. When someone says her name, something catches near his stomach and he makes the face. He knows he does it, and strangely, he likes that somebody can do that to him. “What about it?”

“I’ve wanted someone to make that face about me all my life.”

She goes.

He thinks that these days, and probably all the time he has known her, CJ really has been CJ, with her grace and bossiness and unapologetic strength. And Sam has been Sam, except that his best friend is harder than he used to be. Only Josh hasn’t been himself. Just a version of himself that the others needed.

Josh admits he’s feeling sorry for himself and being maudlin. Then he rubs his neck and looks at his messages.

He has never been a person to change for others, and so he too, has been himself. He just didn’t believe in himself - didn’t believe he was admirable - until Donna did. That’s why he isn’t Joshua Lyman without her.

He doesn’t stop feeling sorry for himself.

****

The day is no busier than usual, but Donna is off, and she can feel it. She feels jetlagged, or permanently dizzy. Her body won’t obey her.

Everyone else can tell she’s off. Her briefings are slightly strained and belabored; her rhythm keeps shifting - jarringly - and she can’t quite keep control of her answers.

The reporters don’t say anything, nor do they take advantage of it. Everybody has an off day, and they know Donna will be back tomorrow. She’s not as quick and flexible as CJ - no one is - but she will be one day, and, as the spokesperson for the Senate Minority, she knows the issues, the people and the politics back-to-front, so she’s never surprised at the podium.

For a spokesperson, she’s powerful in the Senate. She knows how to use the network, and she can call in favours. Once, a few years ago, a reporter - he was new and didn’t know Donna’s history - commented that she was like a nicer, female version of Toby Zeigler. And Donna was touched; she’d worried for so long that she was too like Josh. She doesn’t know that’s what the reporters really say about her behind her back.

Her staff sees the wrinkle in her behavior too, notices that everything takes her longer today. She drifts in and out of conversations and meetings, loses the threads, and then pretends to know what they’re talking about. She sits in her office and stares out the window over the Russell Kennedy building - she has a better view than Josh - for large periods of time.

When Ainsley comes sweeping in at four-thirty, Donna barely notices her.

“Donna,” Ainsley says. When Donna makes no reply, Ainsley tries again. “Hey, Donna, honey, over here.”

“Sorry, Ainsley,” Donna says, smiling ruefully to herself. “Are we supposed to be having lunch today?”

“It’s past four o’clock.”

“Oh.”

“You did your two o’clock briefing already.”

“Yes, I did.”

“In which you announced that the Senate had declared war against Canada.”

“What?”

Ainsley grins. “Just wanted to see if you were on the ball.”

“I am always on the ball,” Donna loftily replies. “But to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Two things. Firstly, you’re going to be my bridesmaid. Secondly...”

“Hey, back up there.”

“What? You must have known. Why wouldn’t I ask my best friend?”

Donna smiles properly for the first time today. She’s not sure when Ainsley went from the-girl-who-dismissed-gun-control-in-front-of-Josh to the first-person-I-want-to-give-good-and-bad-news to. But she doesn’t remember liking another woman this much, and she regards the feeling like it’s easily breakable. Probably because it is.

“Thank you Ainsley.”

“Well, wait until I choose the dress. You might not be in a hurry to thank me then. Secondly, how did things go with Josh last night?”

Donna’s smile falls. “How the hell did you know about that?”

“CJ wormed it out of Josh. She told Sam. He told me. I presume CJ told Sam because she knew he’d tell me, and she knew I’d come down and see you.”

Donna shakes her head. “I leave the place, and yet, I don’t really.”

Ainsley sits down. “Is there anything to eat around here?”

“Marcia,” Donna calls out to her assistant.

Ainsley frowns. “I can eat your assistant?”

Marcia, a statuesque brunette, appears in the doorway with an expectant look on her face.

“Find Ainsley...”

“Something to eat,” Marcia finishes with a grin. She sees Ainsley almost as much as she sees her boss.

“Thank you Marcia,” Ainsley says, when the young woman reappears with a blueberry muffin. “Where did you get that photo of Sam?”

“What?”

Ainsley swallows and points over to Donna’s ridiculously crammed bookcase. There’s a photo in a silver frame on the third shelf. “That photo of you, Sam and Toby. Where’s it from?”

“A party fundraiser in New York,” Donna replies after a moment’s thought. “Taken a few weeks before the first State of the Union.”

“Sam has the same photo in his office, but he can’t remember where it’s from. It bothers him.”

“He should have asked Toby. He has a memory like an elephant.”

“It’s a nice picture.”

“I guess.” She was wearing the green dress for the first time. Josh had complimented her - backhandedly, but twice. In the photo, she’s standing between the two men. Toby is looking at her, she’s looking at Sam, and Sam is looking at the camera.

They were uncertain then, CJ would say. Sam would say they were right and true, but held back by bureaucracy and partisanship. Josh and Toby knew that it would be harder. Knew that the victory and the vindication of winning wouldn’t be enough. They knew - although they didn’t want to - that they’d fail spectacularly and win quietly.

But even they couldn’t know how bad it would eventually be. Josh and Toby - the administration’s true idealists, not because they believed in perfect, noble things, but because they believed in deeper, complex things - were the kind of people who always knew more than they wanted to.

“Did he tell you he loves you?” Ainsley asks nonchalantly.

“Josh?”

“No, Toby,” Ainsley sarcastically rejoins.

“Actually, Toby did tell me once that he loves me. After I graduated, he and CJ took me out for a celebratory dinner. It was really nice.”

“Donna,” Ainsley warns.

“Yes, he told me he loves me. And also that he has really shitty timing.”

“You two will never have good timing.”

Donna realizes that Ainsley is right. “No, we won’t.” She tilts her head, and asks, “Ainsley, does Josh run, at lunchtimes?”

Her friend frowns. “What?”

“Does he run - jog - at lunchtimes?”

“Yes. Most lunchtimes, down near the Memorial. Sam goes with him a couple times a week. If there’s no time during lunch, he goes at night.”

“Oh.”

“He also eats better. I’m not sure he likes it, but it’s about willpower, and Josh has more than enough of that.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That he was jogging?” Ainsley shrugs. “I would have told you but it didn’t seem very important.”

For some reason, it is important. She was always at Josh to eat better, exercise more, and maintain a regular schedule. And after she left, he finally listened to her. That’s what’s important. That she affected him; she resonated. After she was gone, she was still there in his life.

Ainsley finishes the muffin. “I was going to come down here and tell you to stop holding a non-existent grudge. You screwed up back then; it wasn’t only Josh. You were all so certain of what you were doing and then, you didn’t know who you were anymore. You all reacted differently, and you took it out on each other. That’s what I was going to say.”

“But instead...” Donna says.

“It’s your decision, Donna. Whatever you decide...” Ainsley stands up and shrugs, “You’ll still be my best friend, and my bridesmaid, and my first child’s godmother. You’ll still be the senior spokesperson for the Senate Majority. And if you make the wrong decision, you’ll still be lonely.”

The Republican - although Donna’s not sure they can call her that anymore - leaves, thanking Marcia for the muffin on the way out.

A minute later, her assistant - her competent, qualified, wonderful assistant - appears in the doorway. “You have a meeting with Cahill in fifteen minutes.”

Donna looks up at Marcia. “It’s my decision,” she repeats slowly. She stands up. “I mean, I really get to choose. Not because he wants me to, or because he’s forced me to. It’s my decision.”

Marcia frowns. “The meeting with Jack Cahill? Well, sure it’s your decision.”

But Donna is standing the bookcase, grabbing for something without having to look for it. “Call Cahill and cancel. Tell him I have a cold. Or cancer. Whatever.”

“Donna, where are you going?”

“The White House,” Donna yells over her shoulder, already halfway down the hall.

****

The White House is like an elite nightclub: you have to be on the door list to get in. If you don’t have a concrete meeting with a staff member, you have to fill in a WAVES form, weeks in advance, so that you’ll be on the security list that day. Even if, on the off chance that the guard on duty is somebody she knows, he won't be able to bend policy for her.

Donna slows to a halt as she walks towards the first security checkpoint. The sprint down Pennsylvania has left her breathless, and she wonders why she wears such insensible shoes.

It is a guard she knows: Michael, who was star quarterback of his high school team, until he decided to become a security guard. The President likes Michael, so he’d often accompanied them on trips, even though he wasn’t an agent.

“Donna,” Michael says with pleasure. “How have you been?”

“Good, thanks Michael. Look, I’m afraid I haven’t...”

But Michael opens the gate for her. He sees her look of surprise. “Somebody put you on this afternoon’s list. I presume you have a meeting.”

“Oh...yes,” Donna hurriedly covers. “Thanks Michael.”

It’s wonderfully familiar as she walks through the lobby. The place feels like an extra limb, and she can already feel her body adjusting. She’s walking faster, ready to spring out of the way, or duck around people. She’s plotting the fastest route to where she wants to go. She’s mentally marking out who comes from the West Wing and who from the East.

She walks through the Communications bullpen and bumps into CJ. “Hello Donna,” CJ says casually, as if it hasn’t been nearly four years since Donna was last inside the White House.

“Hello CJ. Thanks for putting me on the list.”

CJ frowns. “What list?”

Donna's truly intrigued now. “The list at the front gate. Someone put me down for a meeting this afternoon.” She pauses. “You don’t think it was Josh, do you?”

“What has Josh done...” Sam trails off and stops in his office doorway. “Donna, what you are doing here?”

“Ah, I...” Donna shows him the book she’s holding.

“Oh.” Sam nods in understanding. “Good.” He smiles and walks over to Ginger to ask her something. Sam can’t fake surprise, so he didn’t do it.

And then she knows. “I’ll see you later, CJ,” she tells the other woman.

She turns and walks over to Toby’s office. Without knocking, she opens his door. “Hey Toby,” she says softly.

He looks up from his laptop. “Hello Donna.”

“Thanks for putting me on the list this afternoon.”

His expression doesn’t change. “You’re welcome.”

She wants to say more; wants him to know that of all of them, she respects and admires Toby the most. Toby gave her something that day in May, when he told her about the President’s MS. He gave her a part of himself - his trust - and she knows how few people ever have that honour.

“I’m going to go...” she holds up the book and gestures with her head.

Toby nods, and his mouth crinkles up into half a smile. “It was always your decision, Donna.”

She nods and turns towards Josh’s office.

****

When Josh emerges from the Oval Office, the sun is beginning to set behind Mrs. Landingham’s desk.

Of course, it isn’t Mrs. Landingham’s anymore. Mary-Anne Newett is now the President’s secretary. She’s efficient and friendly, and very good at her job. She’s not afraid of the President - which is probably why she was hired - but she respects him too much to give him lip.

The President doesn’t say anything, but Josh knows he wants somebody to talk back to him. Josh does too.

And Mary-Anne doesn’t have a cookie jar. She knows and appreciates her position, so Mary-Anne doesn’t mind that everyone still calls her desk Mrs. Landingham’s.

“Hello Josh,” Mary-Anne says. “Anna’s son broke his leg; she had to go to the hospital to pick him up. Also to yell at him a little, she says.”

Josh frowns. “Was it Tom or Gil?”

He’s met Anna’s boys many times over the past few years. Tom is pre-med at Georgetown, and sometimes comes up in the afternoons to see his mother. He has a crush on Ginger; everyone knows about it, and Ginger is very kind to him. Gil is in his final year of high school, and thinks he wants to go into politics. Josh likes him; calls him sometimes to chat, got him a job clerking for Senator Tollis, takes him to various events. He likes the kid. And in the back of his mind, he wants to be Gil’s Leo. Josh believes that everybody should have a Leo.

“It was Gil,” Mary-Anne replies. “He was showing off to his friends on the football field, or something similarly masculine. It’s not a very bad break, so he’ll be fine. Anna says she’ll be back tomorrow, normal time. Do you want to arrange a temp?”

Josh looks at his watch; it’s nearly six o’clock. “No point. I can answer my own phones for the next few hours.”

Mary-Anne raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

He glares at her. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve got a pile of reports to get through anyway. I’ll probably be here until midnight.”

“They’ve got a Greek salad in the mess tonight. I can run down and get you some.” Mary-Anne is still over-anxious to please, although she's had the job for three years.

“Mary-Anne, you’ve got the President of the United States to deal with. And if that's not bad enough, you've got Jed Bartlet to deal with as well. I can live without an assistant for one evening.”

“Well, one of the senior assistants will be around if you need something.” The phone rings, and Mary-Anne twists to get it.

Josh trudges slowly back to his office. There’s nothing in there but the pile of reports, and messages, and newspapers, and if it wasn’t enough for him yesterday, it’s too much today. He’s truly tired now, but wired on caffeine. He should probably go for a run, expend some energy.

The bullpen is mostly empty, and his messages are sitting in a neat, chronological, readable pile on Anna’s desk. He starts flicking through him as he walks into his office.

But, when he walks through the door, without looking, Josh knows something is different. His office is neat. His files and reports are organized in their respective, labeled trays; mail and memos awaiting his attention are sitting in the in-tray; books are back in the bookcase; the figures on his board have been tidied up; his pens and pencils are in their jar. He can see his blotter for the first time in months. Maybe years. He’s not sure.

The whole thing reeks of his former assistant’s obsessive-compulsive orderliness.

Sitting, in the center of his desk, is a book. Squinting, Josh makes out the faded title. The Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiing. On top of the book sits a single shoe: black patent leather, with a three-inch heel.

Josh drops his messages and turns wildly, knowing Donna will be standing behind him in the doorway.

She is, and it seems four years of wishing really can make something come true. She’s smiling widely and only wearing one shoe. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Josh replies. “You...” he gestures to his office, “Did this?”

Donna nods. “I had to make sure you’d see the book and the shoe amongst the mess.”

“I can see them.”

It seems Josh - his real, unapologetic, messy self - has always been waiting for this moment. In his imagining, it’s just like this. Perfectly timed. Neat. Warm. He doesn’t need to ask why, doesn’t need to walk around in conversational circles.

“Did Gil really break his leg?”

“No.” Donna smiles. “Anna’s great.”

“Yes, she is.”

“This isn’t it forever,” Donna tells him evenly. “Things aren’t suddenly perfect. There are conversations we need to have.”

“I’m not sure I have the words.”

“You do.” Donna walks - or rather, limps lopsidedly - towards him. She presses a warm hand to his chest. “They’re in here.”

And they are. They weren’t always there, but they are now.

Josh walks over to the desk and collects Donna’s shoe. Bending down, he lifts her foot up. Off-balance, Donna rests a hand on his shoulder. She thinks of the picture they must present, and her heart swells. It snaps back into place, her rhythm, and she can call this thing between them a dance again. It won’t ever be the same again; it will simply be different.

He slips her shoe on, rubbing her stocking-clad ankle with his fingers.

Josh looks up, sees her glittering blue eyes. Before he can think about it - because thinking would stall him, and he’s wasted enough time already - he stands up and kisses her. She’s salty and warm and slick. He’s unsurprisingly good at this. Donna’s breath catches and jumps whilst his tongue twirls maddening against the roof of her mouth, and her hips press forward involuntarily.

He laughs into her mouth, pressing against her in return. He pulls back when his lungs begin to complain. She rests her forehead against his, and it is that movement, not the kiss, which suddenly reminds Josh exactly who he is.

“Joshua?” Donna asks.

“Donnatella?” he replies, relishing the syllables.

“Nothing. I just wanted to hear you say my name.”

Donna isn’t sure if she’s made the right choice, but when she packed up everything she owned and drove to New Hampshire seven years ago, she wasn’t sure if that was the right choice. When she left him four years ago, she wasn’t certain that was the right choice.

She decides she’ll just trust that it was her choice, and that Josh listened to her advice after she was gone, and rubbed her ankle gently when he put her shoe on.

Josh kisses her again.

He still has heartburn, but it’s the better kind.

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