Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(Also another quick note: I used this website as a guide because it provided a myriad of different meanings for the flowers. While this is incredibly useful for writing, it probably doesn’t say a lot for the accuracy of the meanings I’ve used in the story. I chose the ones that had the most poetic relevance, and so I apologize if there are any incorrect definitions!)

'And us too / Not the same people that our old friends knew,'

The Lyman family flowermark, passed down through generations, was a nasturtium. Sunburst and orange, it represented conquest, victory, patriotism. It was on Josh's back, a whole cluster of them across his shoulder blades, in the exact same place as his father's.

The day the flowers appeared was one of the family’s favorite stories to tell at their innumerable family gatherings. It was when they knew that Joshua would change the world of politics, just like his father before him.

Josh couldn't be sure if it was this assurance, prevalent since the rosy, sun-soaked mornings of his childhood, was what had originally motivated him to go into law. He doubted that there was some innate moral intuition compelling him to do so when he was young. That compulsion seemed reserved for brighter, higher people like Sam or Donna. The need to do good, instead of conquer. For him it seemed more like a lack of anything better to do.

The nasturtium bloomed across his sister's hands. Even as her features blurred with memory, he would remember the flowers on her hands clearly; folded neatly across the huge oak kitchen table they used to do their homework on.

Almost every day of his life, Josh wondered what those flowers would have meant. What profession she had been destined to go into.

Wormwood appears on his hands in the same place, on the night his sister dies.

No one points it out.

~

Chive blossoms were the Moss flowermark. Usefulness.

A blessing and a curse, really. She hated how her old boyfriends would gaze at it, hated how people would touch it. The purple colour brought out her eyes, apparently. Anyone looking at it made uneasiness settle upon her bones like a sickness, but she could never explain why.

It seemed like an invitation.

~

In college, brash and loud and present, hurling himself into law school and all-nighters, was when the narcissus arrived. Interlaced with the family flower, his family history branded forevermore with personal ego. Josh didn't care. It didn't take people seeing the flowers across his shoulder blades to figure out that he was an asshole, after all. And if they had gotten that far, he joked, they should have known better.

Really, he didn't care.

~

There was cinquefoil for Donna. Beloved daughter. One of the first flowers to appear, and she brandished it proudly. Practically sprinting to school that morning to show her friends, because she was loved, look, there was the evidence.

It was only years later that she thought about how her first flower was in relation to someone else.

~

Coltsfoot appears when him and Sam pass the bar. They watch it appear on the other's hand, yelling excitedly. They're lawyers now, justice marking them forevermore.

~

She thought there would be a flowermark when they met. That familiar icy-burn of a one appearing as soon as they locked eyes across a lecture.

But it didn't, and she didn't think much of it.

She had left in the dead of night. She thought maybe she should feel something, some poetic resonance, an invisible thing of magnitude shifting and clicking into place when she finally, finally packed her bags and left him.

But she didn't.

It was a comfort to her. That this chapter in her life wasn't to have a permanent mark on her skin. Neither at its beginning nor its conclusion.

The marks were saved for better people, she supposed.

~

The single cape buttercup banded around his ring finger while he's reading at his desk makes his heart leap. The sun was streaming through the window, making the flower almost glow against his skin.

Joys to come.

~

There was purple larkspur, ambition, on Donna's thigh. This was good, she was moving forward. She was sick of being branded with flowers of innocence. Sick of being used because of them.

It appeared on the morning before she sneaked into Josh Lyman's office, hoping he didn't realize that he had never actually hired her.

"I think you'll find me valuable."

Joshua Lyman was much younger than she imagined. Throwing himself down corridors and yelling into offices with apparent zeal, like it was the one thing he was brought on this earth to do.

There was only one thing that she had known about him previously. It was the first thing the interns whispered to her before they both met, almost as soon as she had set foot in the doorway of his empty office.

That he was the man who had wormwood on his fists.

~

"Shut up." he tells himself in the mirror, tells the gardenia and maidenhair fern that bloom across his hip, on the day that Donna breezed into his office and basically employed herself, who does that?

A secret love.

For a fleeting, stupid moment, he wonders if she has it too.

~

Everyone knows about the amaranth that brands Josh's shoulder. Constancy. Someone that can be relied upon. A lot of people think that it's something of an urban legend- it’s too fitting that Mcgarry's bulldog, of all people, has such a mark.

The people closest to him know that it's true. Sam and CJ have seen it first-hand, but they won't say how.

~

It took courage, to appear at the Bartlet office again, just before the election results were announced. Donna wasn't surprised when edelweiss sprang up on her calf, when she finally met Josh's eye, and asked to be taken back in.

He asked about her injured ankle, many times, but was none the wiser when she told him that she slipped on the ice.

~

He wasn't sure what started it. Perhaps he moved to quickly, or raised his voice when she wasn't expecting it. But he knew what he saw.

"You flinched just then."

"It caught me off guard." she replied in apology. The fact that she felt like she had to apologize made Josh's chest ache.

"I won't shout if it upsets you."

"It doesn't upset me, Josh. I just- God, why do you notice stuff like that?"

"Notice stuff like what?"

"Like how you remember the exact words someone said years ago, or know exactly what cards to play to wrangle someone into rooting for your guy. You know the names of all of Sam's cousins, and you notice how Margaret drums a specific rhythm into her desk, because you do it to, when you're nervous." she took a quiet breath. She wanted to stop talking, but couldn't. "Why do you love everyone so much? To the point where everything that everyone does affects you so... profoundly?"

He pulls her into a hug. If she starts crying, if she can feel her tears wet his shirt, or feel her take quiet, shaky breaths in his arms, neither of them mention it.

"I hate the sound of my own voice." she said finally.

"Why?"

"It annoyed him sometimes. And... I hate that I was affected in that way. To hate parts of myself that I had never even considered before."

Several colorful scenarios of running him over with a tank crossed Josh's mind."You know, we have the power to send secret service agents to his house. We could say he was planning to sabotage the campaign, or something."

"I'm not asking you to do that."

"I don't need to be asked."

Quiet settled between the two of them.

"I know it doesn't matter, but I like the sound of your voice."

Despite everything, she smiled. "Yours isn't too bad either."

He laughed. "Donnatella" escaping him like a sigh.

It was the first time he had called her that. She’d replay it in her mind, the way his voice framed the syllables of her full name, and pretend that this wasn’t vital information.

A tiny sprig of mint appeared behind her ear that night, hidden from view.

Protection.

~

A single cypress flower wrapped around his wrist on the day of his sister's funeral. When a second one appears on the other wrist years later, he doesn't need Donna to tell him what had happened with his father on the day of the election results.

 ~

Crepe myrtle appears on Josh when he listens to the first 'official' President Bartlet speech, once he's sworn in.

Eloquence.

Everyone knew that it was Sam's flower. It was on Sam’s writing hand, barely leaving any room for anything else. Josh felt honored that this emblem had appeared on his own skin too- it was symbolic of a strong connection between the two of them. He knew that the nasturtium had appeared on Sam's shoulder on the same day, because it was the first thing Sam told him as soon as he set foot into the office.

Neither of them were sure where the chive blossoms had come from, though.

~

The crepe myrtle appeared on Donna a few years later. "This is one of my best friends, Donna Moss-" he introduced her to his team in California, both of them not being able to stop smiling. It had been a while since they had seen each other. The icy burn of a flowermark appearing when she met Sam's eyes. That frank, undisguised delight at seeing her here.

~

"So did anyone else get pear blossoms this morning?" Toby asks begrudgingly, into the previously silent Oval Office. They were in the Oval Office now. The first day, and they all felt as if they had broken in without anyone else realizing.

The room dissolved into laughter, glad to address the elephant in the room. Emphatic agreement, secret, euphoric looks at each other because they were onto something here, it was written in the flowers, the marks dotted along their spines that had all appeared at the same time, on the same morning.

Lasting friendship.

~

Rose daphne appears on the small of her back. The dip in her spine where Josh would rest his hand to guide her down corridors.

A desire to please.

~

A yellow hyacinth on his ankle, months later.

"Jealousy?" Donna asks when she spots it, incredulous.

"Constancy." he corrects.

He's fairly sure that she's right. When he watches her in a red dress disappear around the corner to meet a date, he's almost certain that she's right.

~

"I was wondering who gave me this-" CJ shows an identical plant on her arm, exactly where Josh's is.

"It's the only one that I don't recognize."

"It's a houseleek. You know, a kind of succulent."

"How romantic." said Josh dryly. CJ didn't hear him- she was busy checking something on her computer.

"Hens and chicks!"

"Hens and chicks?"

"That's what they're called. God, I can't believe I have to share a flowermark with you."

"I think we're sharing a flowermark because of the raw, sexual chemistry that emanates from us the second we're in the same room together."

"Yeah, that'll be it." she squints at the screen. "Huh."

"What?"

"It means welcome home."

"Oh." Josh looked away. "Gross."

"Yeah, I'm not too happy about it either."

"Let's uh... never speak of this again."

"Deal." 

~

The flowers he sends to Donna, to mark their anniversary, almost causes her to throw a stapler at him.

Purple alstroemeria, friendship, devotion, with tiny white laurestines interlacing the whole saccharine display, devoted to you, I die if neglected.

"Can you be any more embarrassing."

"There were also gonna be yellow roses to really bring the whole friendship theme home, but they never arrived. Also these were all gonna carpet the floor and walls of the bullpen, but turns out florists-and Leo- exist solely to trample the dreams of the common man who just wants to do something nice for his loyal and respected aide."

"I hate you."

~

There's cordyline blossom across one of her wrists, purity of heart.

She catches him staring at it bemusedly as she organizes files on his desk. "Don't get any ideas."

He doesn't. On the same night, he gazes after her, thinking of cordyline.

I wouldn't stop for red lights.

~

Donna didn't stop to check what flower had appeared when she was told that Josh had been shot. She could barely feel the icy burn of it working its way onto her skin.

~

The president has a single magnolia on the back of his right hand. This sign of nobility, of a born leader, won him a few favors in the election- the press really went wild with the visible flowermarks during the campaign.

However what surprised Josh, once he had swam back into consciousness and staring up at the fluorescent lights of the hospital, pain ringing through his chest because...

He had looked down at his hand before he drifted off again, and found that a single magnolia had bloomed there.

The appointed son.

~

Josh is branded with hollowroot on his left side- weakness. He doesn't show it to anyone, but he swears that Stanley can see it through his shirt, somehow.

~

She had only meant to drop a few files off at his apartment and leave, but Josh was worrying her. He should have been asleep at that late hour, but she knew he was having nightmares. She recognized it by the hollowness to his eyes, and his hand that had that nervous tremor he used to have whenever he was nervous, or exhausted, or both.

He was irritable, a hand scraping through his hair, wincing when he tried to get up from his bed. At once keeping his distance yet desperate for her attention in a way he couldn't articulate.

So she lay down beside him. Talked until the raw, unsettled feeling that had been clinging to him for days now began to melt away. Until the early hours of the morning and sleep was threatening to overcome both of them.

"Please don't leave me here alone." He said to her, quietly, brokenly, when he felt the bed-springs rise as she was about to get up. The shame in his tone of voice made her chest ache.

She surprised herself by knowing that this was the most natural thing in the world for them, falling asleep beside each other. Feeling the warm, animal heat of him against her back, surrounding her in his arms. He was clinging to her for safety because she was the only one there, she reasoned.

But it was difficult not to feel so at home when she could feel his shaky breath warming her neck. Sighing finally when he was certain that this wouldn't change, that this, this, was certain.

He smelled so familiar. Like the times he would give her his coat when it was cold and they were walking home together.

The soft, needy sound that escaped from him when she shifted, turned around so that she was facing him made her heart stutter. She pressed a kiss to his jaw softly when his arms found her waist again, their legs tangled together under the duvet. His cotton t-shirt was soft against her palm, and there was that warmth again underneath it.

"Go to sleep."

"Yeah." he hummed, voice slow like honey.

His eyelashes were fluttering, closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep when he knew she was watching.

She knew he was stealing glances at her- the image of her sleeping in his bed something he wanted to commit to memory.

"Thank you." he breathed, when he thought she was asleep.

When she found chamomile the next morning at the place his hands rested, she wasn't surprised. Nor was she surprised that during the night she had burrowed into him, face pressed against his soft cotton t-shirt, the fabric riding up to show the edges of chamomile that had also appeared on him.

He was handsome, when the golden morning light hit his features in hazy, dust-filled sunbeams through the blinds. When he was asleep, unaware that anyone was watching him.

Donna could have laughed.

He was handsome anyway.

***

Donna notices violets across his collarbone when he pulls his tie loose.

Loyalty.

"Of course."

"What?"

"Nothing."

She wonders if he'll ever find out that they have at least one shared flower. She wonders if he'll ever ghost a hand along the wreath of violets gathered across her ribs.

She feels her face burning, can see Josh looking at her oddly, so makes her excuses and leaves the room.

~

Heather blooms across his arm when he really examines why he hates all of Donna's boyfriends so much. Josh is drunk when he notices the mark, laughs aloud at just how fucking sad his collection of flowers are. His entire body becoming an illustration of unrequited, desperate love. The conquest from his birthflower, the nobility of the magnolias that the President gave him, for fuck's sake. They shouldn't be next to his sad parade of heathers and gardenias.

Heather was for attraction, for luck.

But no one would be able to ignore the double meaning of solitude.

It was partly the reason why he broke that window, after all.

~

He silently asked her to stay, on the next night. Because he knew the silence would ring in his ears the second the door closed, because his hands wouldn't stop shaking, because his lungs were burning, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't stop crying. Silently, like it would go away if he didn't draw attention to it. If neither of them mentioned it.

Her hand is cool against his cheek in the waiting room and he leans into it, gratefully.

~

The peonies are some of the oldest flowers he has, and ones he covers up as often as he can. They're in full bloom after Rosslyn, but are slowly retreating back into their original space, in time. The shame and anger he feels on a near constant basis is checked, by her presence.

He wonders if she'll ever know how much she means to him.

"No, what she really means to me, Sam." Josh told him, in a bout of sentimentality one night.

"She takes care of you, Josh."

"Yeah, I-"

"Do you honestly think she doesn’t feel the same way?"

Josh doesn't answer. He never does, when Sam asks.

There's a point when Sam stops asking.

~

"What did you mean when you said it's not what it looks like?"

He wanted to tell her. Could feel it sing beneath his skin when he glanced up at her, and oh, she looked so lovely under the Christmas lights. Under every light. He could hear carols drifting from the reception room and this year was the first time it hadn't bothered him.

You mean too much to me to get this wrong.

There were no flowers for that.

~

It was during the lockdown test-drill that the honeysuckle grew. Circling her arm when she meets CJ's eyes, and knows, she knows, that she's right.

"It's not the White House, it's him."

Perhaps going abroad for a while would be a nice change of pace.

~

Mourning bride appears on his ankle when the explosion in Gaza was announced. For one awful moment, he took it as confirmation that she had died. He wishes he could remove this flower, until Donna shows him hers, in the same place. It appeared when she found out that he had been shot, how awful it had been because she thought he'd died, and he changes the subject quickly.

He hates thinking about those days.

~

Blue and purple hyacinths explode across his forearms on the plane to Germany. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry-

~

Colin knows, he’s seen the flowers across her body. When he arrives, he knows exactly who it's for, and makes his excuses.

~

Donna calls Josh when she lands. He asked her to, as if she wouldn't do it anyway. But then, the next morning, he calls again.

Over politics of course. Trying to mull over some solutions to bad polls via a Socratic method. Then the next day it's over legislation, then the next a typo in a speech that had some fairly drastic consequences. He just launches in as soon as he hears her voice on the other end.

Donna doesn't quite know why he calls her so often, until suddenly, it clicks.

"-and it's kind of incredible that we as a governmental branch have gotten so far without even considering-"

"I'm still alive, Josh." she says softly.

For a moment, she doesn't know if the phone picked it up. Until his sigh, crackly over the intermittence, "I know that."

"You can still call me, I like hearing your voice, I just... want you to know that I'm safe. That nothing terrible is going to happen while I'm away."

"How're your parents doing?"

"They're fine. The house isn't built for a wheelchair, but we make do. They say thank you for Dad's birthday gift. A little intrigued as to why they keep hearing the landline go off at four in the morning, though."

She can hear him smile over the phone. "They think you've got a secret boyfriend or something?"

"I won't tell if you don't."

The quiet white noise over the phone as they both listen for the other, and Donna suddenly wished that this moment could last for hours. Quiet, but knowing that he's there. The presence between the two of them spanning across entire states. Knowing that they care so much.

"I'm going back to sleep now."

"Donna?"

"Yes?"

"I like hearing your voice, too."

"Good night, Josh."

~

The bullpen wasn't really built for a wheelchair, either. She felt clumsy, too large and unwieldy trying to navigate the corridors, navigate the piteous looks people delivered to her on a near constant basis.

She takes Kate's advice and visits her after hours, tells her how she's feeling and suddenly she's crying, suddenly she realises she can't stop crying.

He's not there for her.

-

Kingspear grows across his ribs almost as soon as he's realized she's gone. That there was no final chapter, he was simply to never see her again.

He was having trouble breathing again.

~

A string of dandelions on his knee when Santos agrees to run, which were a nice change of pace, from all the macabre raspberry-blossoms that were blooming in Donna's absence. The dandelions made him laugh, 'Really, Congressman?'

Josh certainly feels like he's offering a paltry string of dandelions to him, when he outlines the nine-point election plan over a lukewarm coffee, in their unheated office. Like they were on the playground, and he was offering friendship in the form of flowers he had found all by himself outside, the soil smooth and packed tight with overuse.

But then again, he wouldn't have it any other way. He meets his eye, and suddenly knows what the dandelions mean.

Faith.

~

The coriander was beginning to feel less like an assurance and more like a taunt. Hidden worth. It's still hidden, Donna. You're Russell's spokesperson now, but you still haven't done anything.

She just wanted to matter, to belong to something. As the weeks passed, she ignored how futile this goal was beginning to feel. As she passed Josh along campaign trails, she ignored how it felt when he avoided her gaze.

Maybe he was just busy.

~

The ambrosia threatened to engulf the both of them, but still, but still, they didn't talk about it.

Your love is reciprocated.

They were in the same hotel much more often than he had expected, considering they were on opposing campaigns. Sometimes, directly opposite the corridor.

He threw a pillow over his face, and tried his best to just.

Fall. Asleep.

Chapter Text

And then, she's back.

It had been a while since they had seen each other, but she was back. Lou hired her. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but it sure felt good when Donna hit his arm after he started singing 'Old Friends' at the sight of her walking along the hotel corridor towards him.

"I thought you liked Simon and Garfunkel."

"I like it when you don't sing it." she replied, fighting off a smile.

"Your hair's changed."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, it looks nice. It always looks nice, are you kidding?"

"You don't look too bad yourself, new suit?"

"Oh, yeah-"

"And you've spruced up your hair! Looks like it did when I met you for the first time."

He ruffled it self-consciously, smiling. "We should do this more often. Just... throwing compliments at each other."

He did look different. Better suits, looking more like he used to. But Donna noticed that there was something dogged about him. Always that restlessness, but now there was something hungry about it. A hollowness behind the eyes that she suspected needed more than a good night's sleep to alleviate.

He looked older.

She wanted to touch him. Fix his tie, or take his hand when she could see it falter at his side. She was tired of staring at his profile under the fluorescent lights of a mid-tier hotel, tired of thinking about how it would feel if she ran her fingers along his jaw. He had leaned into her touch that night she stayed after Rosslyn, many years ago. An indelible memory that she still turns over in her mind, whenever she feels like she's never meant anything to anyone.

He hadn't shaved in a few days, just like then.

She wondered if it would still feel the same.

~

"I'm going to therapy again." he says the next day, to no one in particular.

Donna glances up at him. "How's it going?"

"It's going well! Really, uh, expanding my roster of people I'm comfortable crying in front of. Well, 'being emotionally vulnerable with' is the correct term but let's face it, for me that usually just means crying." he sniffed. "Turns out I'm immensely fucked up."

"They just came right out and said that to you, did they?"

"Yeah, they did." he grinned. "My self-loathing combined with my unprecedented levels of arrogance alone really should have alerted the FBI in those personality tests we did years ago, do you remember those?"

"Yeah, I passed with flying colours."

"They should have just taken me round to the back of the White House and- you can't excel at personality tests, Donna. They're just there to make sure you don't kill the President or anything."

"No, I'm fairly sure they just outright said that I'm delightful, and that I'm wasted in the West Wing."

That struck a chord with him, oddly. He smiled and said nothing.

She was about to leave, Santos was motioning for her, but Josh took her hand. Well, almost took it; she could see it reach out to her, then think better of it. It was enough for her to make her stay.

"We should get breakfast or something, if you're free. Y'know, at some point." he said.

"That roster you mentioned before- how many people are actually in it?"

"Three people."

"Your therapist, Sam, and-"

"And you." he said softly, then grinned. "But it's just breakfast, I doubt that we'll get that far."

"A girl can dream. Emotional vulnerability is attractive, you know."

He gave her that look. The look which was always gifted to her for no discernible reason and suddenly, they were back to seven years ago. Neither had left the other out in the cold, they just picked right back up where things left off, back in the bullpen, him staring adoringly back at her while there were Cubans in a raft, or crime rates were on the rise, or the Cartographers for Social Equality were setting up camp in the press room. Where all manner of things were happening, and they were in love. Where they shared the same building together, and everything was happening, and love had appeared. Fully formed, ready to run.

"I'll see you later, Donatella."

And god, her heart fluttered.

~

A fire alarm, the next night. A different hotel, a different state. The strange thing was that it was not the alarm that woke her up. It was Josh beating down her door, calling her name, and Donna didn't need to remember why he was so panicked.

It was a false alarm, at the end of it all. They didn't know, some teenager must have pulled it at some point during the night or something. All the residents shivering in the parking lot while they all filed slowly back inside, but Josh wanted to stay outside, heave some cold air into his lungs, tears streaming down his face from the cold. What he'll say is the cold.

She stared at the silhouette of him for a few moments as she wrapped her dressing gown tighter around herself. The planes of his face catching in the moonlight, eyes shining with tears.

"We have to be up in three hours." said Donna, making him jump.

"You have a talent for sneaking up on me." His voice was thick.

She sidled up beside him. "Are you alright?"

"Can I..."

"Sure."

Donna took Josh's hand.

"They sound so much like sirens." he said finally with a sigh. Donna saw his breath in silvery wisps.

"I know they do."

They stood in silence for a while.

"This probably isn't the best time to ask this, but why did you ignore me right up until I was actually on the same campaign trail as you?" she said finally, when the silence was starting to ring in her ears.

She had asked the question gently, but it still took him by surprise, as if the words were loud enough to reverberate against the silent, empty cars that surrounded them."What?"

"We've been in the same hotels for months now, you didn't once want to check in and make sure I was okay?"

"I didn’t know what to say."

She didn't say anything. Guilt flooded through his chest, and only abated when Donna took his hand. It was something to focus on, that steady warmth.

She always was an anchor to him.

Donna would trace the wormwood across his hands. She was the only person Josh knew that did that to him. She didn't even have to look, she knew the pattern off by heart. It had always made him not feel quite so self-conscious about it.

"I'm really sorry. For many things. Things I really have to address individually, at some point." he said thickly. "Some point where I'm not crying in a parking lot in my underwear and t-shirt. I never apologized for... the way I was after Gaza."

He was glad it was dark. The flowers on him were something of a giveaway as to why he had kept his distance from her.

"It's okay."

"It's really not. We... we have to talk about this sometime."

She leaned into his shoulder as they looked up at the night sky. It really was pretty, this far out in the sticks. "Well, we have the rest of Matt Santos' political career to work stuff out."

He laughed gruffly. "Years, then."

"Years and years and years. The Presidency,-"

"Then second term,"

"Then Matt Santos: Emperor of the World,"

"Then Matt Santos: Human Ambassador to the Intergalactic Federation,"

She laughed. "I think we should call it quits if they've invented intergalactic space travel before we've figured out whatever the hell this is supposed to be."

"Will you really want to be with me all that time?"

"Would you not want me to?"

"Donna..." he looked at her, fully. "We could be... staring at the inevitable heat-death of the entire universe, and I'd want to spend it with you. And all the time before, for that matter."

And then, like breathing, she kissed him.

~

The red chrysanthemums that blossom across his left pectoral the next day are a relief.

'I love,' they scream into the world, 'I love, I love, I love.'

And he does.

God, he does.