Chapter Text
do you think i’m being foolish if i don’t rush in
i’m scared to death that she might be it
that the love is real, that the shoe might fit
she might just be my everything and beyond
[beyond, leon bridges]
.&.
He finds her perched on the edge of her desk, one hand pushing a waterfall of blonde hair over her shoulder, the other twisting in the cord of her desk phone. She’s wearing a ballgown of deep red, sleek and fitted to her lithe body. It’s not his first time seeing her all dressed up, not the first time he’s admired her in a fancy gown with furtive looks and brief touches, but it’s the first time he’s been allowed to unabashedly stare, to sweep his gaze from her delicate collarbone and the nip of her waist, past the subtle flare of her skirt to the arch of her foot encased in high heels.
He’d taken the long way from the West Wing to the East, past the Oval Office and through the Roosevelt Room, across the lobby to the operations bullpen, taking a moment to stand in his old doorway. Sam had been missing and Ginger had leaned against her desk with a questioning look before he wandered away. He walked the basement level next, treading old paths to the Mess, the Situation Room and the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue. He’d jogged up a flight of stairs, easily finding the wood-paneled offices of the East Wing, before pausing, beaten, because the office Amy had once, briefly, occupied was clearly empty.
Annabeth had found him, in a glittering gold dress and hair coiffed high atop her head.
“Well, don’t you look dapper,” she’d said, cheerfully, using a mirror in the office’s lobby to put in her earrings.
He’d grinned and thanked her, before turning in a questioning circle. “Which, uh, which one’s Donna’s?”
She’d pointed behind him, to the left. “That one,” she told him, before grabbing her wrap from the couch and practically twirling out of the room. “Don’t be late! Motorcade’s leaving in fifteen minutes.”
He leans against the open doorway, now, lost in memories echoing over almost a decade. If he closes his eyes, he might be able to pretend that it’s four years ago, or even eight, the distance from her office door to her desk similar to that of the space between his old office and her spot in the ops bullpen.
She’s tapping a pen against the leather blotter on her desk, nodding along to whatever is being said over the phone line. There’s a pause in her movements before she grins at him over her shoulder, clearly unsurprised to find him lurking. It hits him, again, all at once: they’re so far away from those early, heady days in New Hampshire and he finds himself, keenly, achingly, missing that makeshift office as they stand together on the edge of their next great thing.
He taps the face of his watch at her, raising a teasing eyebrow. Donna rolls her eyes in response and sticks her tongue out, scribbling down a quick note on a scrap of paper before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.
“Excuse me, is this the office for the First Lady’s Chief of Staff? I’ve got an appointment with her,” he says with his best prep school manners, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face.
Donna scoffs, quickly grabbing for the orange resting on her desk to pitch at his head. He laughs, catching the fruit easily to toss in the air before setting it down on the small table next to her couch.
“You almost ready to go?” he asks, glancing around for her coat or one of those wraps that he’s seen CJ and Mrs. Bartlet use before.
She nods, rummaging through the stacks of papers on her desk, straightening the already perfect piles. She blows out a frustrated breath, “I swore I wrote down what Miranda and Peter were wearing tonight, but I can’t find seem to find anything.”
“Why would you—?”
“Vanity Fair’s asking,” she interrupts, triumphantly seizing a blue post-it from the edge of her desk. Josh watches her scribble something else on the paper before folding it in half and sticking it to her White House ID with a piece of tape. She reaches down for her purse on the visitor chair in front of the desk, pulling out her cell phone, a tube of lipstick and other small things Josh knows will end up shoved in his pockets before they’re out the door.
“Margaret had me setting up the office, unboxing the untold amounts of crap I apparently own,” he says, slouching further against the open doorjamb, fingers tapping out an uneven rhythm on his arms crossed in front of his chest.
“Mmm, yes, I vaguely remember,” she replies, a compact mirror appearing out of nowhere as she checks her makeup.
He watches her fiddle with her earrings, a soft smile pulling at his mouth as he shifts his weight, his body full of nervous energy. “Anyways, I came across an actual relic,” he says, shoving a hand inside his jacket to find the laminated badge he’d tucked there earlier. He carefully wraps the silver chain around his fingers and pulls it out, the badge swinging lazily in the air. The colors have clearly faded, but the words Bartlet for America Staff stand out as if nine years haven’t passed since it was last used.
Donna grins, clearly appreciating the nostalgia, and tries to reach for the dangling badge, the wide gulf between her desk and the door another reminder of how things have changed. Of course, her quick pout of frustration reminds him that other things still remain the same and he laughs, moving further into the room, one hand shoved deep into his pocket, gaze moving over Donna’s familiar face. She’s left her hair down and curled, just like four years ago, but there’s something sleeker to the look, her bangs framing her bright blue eyes. She’s darkened her eye makeup from earlier, too, and he catches the sweet, floral scent of her favorite perfume.
He stops in front of her desk, leaning his body into her space, fingers glancing off her bare shoulders, gliding down her unadorned arm to squeeze her hand in greeting. She grins up at him under long lashes and he raises the arm not clutching her hand even higher so the old campaign badge hangs at eye level.
She reaches for it, a smile growing across her face as her fingers grasp the hard-edged plastic. Josh tucks a fallen piece of hair behind her ear, his touch lingering on the curve of her neck before he places a sweet kiss on her lips.
“You look amazing.”
Donna smiles wide across her face, already flushed from his slow sweep of her gown, before gently tugging at his bow tie, perfectly knotted and centered.
“Let me guess,” she says, teasing. “It’s a clip-on.”
He rolls his eyes and bats her hand away, “For Inauguration night? Never. And, anyways, I know how to tie a bowtie, god.”
“Uh huh, since when?”
“Since always,” he huffs, his hand dropping from her neck to her waist, squeezing playfully. “I just, you know, wanted you to do it,” he tilts his head, hovering in front of her, “It was our thing.”
Donna softens, presses another quick kiss to his mouth. “Yes,” she says, softly. “Yeah, it was.”
He taps the badge, drawing her attention back to it. “I completely forgot I still had it.”
“I’m surprised you managed to pack anything away before heading to Texas,” she says, a hint of regret behind her words and Josh presses his mouth to her hair, the apology unspoken.
“I couldn’t leave behind your notecards for whatever schmuck CJ and Leo were gonna hire,” he teases, voice gentle. “They’d never have been able to decipher your chicken scratch anyways.”
He’s talking, wandering, really, as Donna inspects the badge between her fingers. She hasn’t found it yet, but he’s not too worried and he lets her search the front of the card for memories long buried.
“Leo thought I’d lost the badge.”
She quirks a brow at his words, blue eyes filled with humor.
“He did,” Josh insists, laughter in his voice. “He had been such a stickler for them at first because the president hadn’t bothered to know who we were yet, and he wanted to make sure everyone on staff was easily identifiable. I told Leo I’d given it to my assistant and I’d have another made in South Carolina and all he said was ‘well, what the hell did you do that for?’ as if I was being unreasonable.”
Donna snorts, inelegant, fingers still clutching the badge. She’s close to discovery, he knows, tilting it this way and that so the scratched plastic catches the lights of her office.
He speaks again, intent to distract her. “God, you can still see where I spilled coffee all over it and the liquid got into the cracks of the laminate,” he points it out, finger trailing along the edge, hinting at the back.
Donna follows the movement instinctually, slender fingers finally twisting the badge around in her hands. Her brow furrows, still searching for the elusive stain, Josh is sure, when her face freezes, one perfectly manicured nail reaching towards the diamond ring he’d secured onto the chain before walking over from the West Wing.
“Josh, what?” her voice is barely a whisper, his name a puff of breath on her lips.
He’s supposed to be on bended knee. He may suck at a lot of relationship things, but this, this he knows. So, he takes her hands still clutching the badge, keeps his gaze trained on her wide, wide stare and slowly lowers himself to the ground. He watches the spark of understanding flit across Donna’s face, the way tears start to gather, turning her blue eyes oceanic.
“I, uh, can’t tell you the moment I fell in love with you. Maybe it was four years ago, this exact night, when you stood in the snow and I realized you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. Maybe it was two years ago, in Germany, and I was so scared that the same thing that had taken my father was about to take you, too. Maybe it wasn’t anything big, maybe it was every little thing we shared, every little normal thing that made us, us. Like every time you stole my fries, or sat across from me writing notes, or told me some utterly random thing you’d read or heard or seen.
“I should have known it, though, when I told you that those stories I told Jack would make me like you. Because, really, all those stories—and, like, hundreds more—are what make me love you. And, god, Donna, I wanna spend the rest of my life collecting every single story of what makes you absolutely incredible. I wanna spend the rest of my life telling people all those stories about you. I wanna, fuck,” and here his hands shake, his voice wavers, and Donna’s eyes are glistening, tears threatening to spill and ruin her makeup. “Donna, I wanna spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Josh,” she says, voice tremulous, a question and an answer in one.
He gently moves his hands, releasing hers completely to move towards the metal chain the old staff badge hangs from. Margaret had walked in on him, scotch tape in hand, and had almost shouted bloody murder as she realized his intentions. He’s not really sure if her way was any better, a piece of ribbon threaded through the hole punched at the top, but he figures it looks classier than watching him rip off a piece of tape holding the most expensive piece of jewelry he’s ever purchased. The badge falls to the floor with a muffled clatter, immediately forgotten as the ring sparkles in the warm glow of Donna’s office, reflecting and refracting the light that hits the diamond’s surface, the white gold band gleaming even as Josh almost drops it from nerves. He’s shit with jewelry, hadn’t known anything about engagement rings or diamonds beyond knowing that this ring—two carats, oval cut, with smaller diamonds embedded all the way around the band—was what he’d wanted to promise Donna forever with.
He sucks in a breath, tries to remember if he’s been breathing since he first pulled the badge from his pocket. Donna’s moved her right hand to her mouth, her left resting against the skirt of her dress. Josh’s knee is growing numb and Donna’s still perched atop her desk and the motorcade is probably pulling away from the White House, but he takes her left hand in his, thumb rubbing gently across the back of her hand.
“I need you to know that I would do it all over again. Every late night, every hard day. I’d live through every minute apart and every gomer you dated because it got us here, to this moment.”
She shifts, dropping her hand to rest against the curve of his jaw.
“But, I gotta say, I’m really tired of waiting,” he says, and Donna gives a choked laugh, fingers catching the few tears that have gathered at the corner of his eyes. He holds the ring up higher, lets the moment hang, suspended between them, before asking, “So, what do you say about making this whole thing official? Wanna get married?”
Donna smiles, wide and gleaming, nodding fast, her voice quickly following.
“Yes, Josh, of course, yes,” she says, her face a million times brighter and more brilliant than the diamond he’s slipping onto her finger. She urges him upwards, his joints cracking in protest as their lips meet each other’s and it’s like that first kiss all over again: full of wonder and disbelief and tasting, Josh thinks, of finally and forever.
He’s got one hand wrapped around her satin covered waist, another at the back of her head, lost amongst blonde curls. She’s gripping the lapels of his tuxedo jacket, pulling him closer to her body, her head tilting to the side and mouth opening to his probing tongue.
He pushes forward, hand sliding from her waist to her back, seconds away from laying her across her desk and forgetting the nine—nine—balls they’re supposed to attending beside the President and First Lady, when there’s an excited shout from the outer lobby and, god, it really is like that hotel room in wherever the fuck they were, usa on the campaign trail as Josh clings closer and Donna pulls away, softly, gently, and the President calls out his name.
This time, though, they don’t jump apart.
This time, though, Josh continues to clutch her waist and Donna slides her thumb across his bottom lip, rubbing away the lipstick that’s transferred over.
This time, he whispers, “I love you,” as President Santos strolls into her office.
This time, she grins and replies, “Love you more,” her fingers twining with his, the metal of her engagement ring cool to the touch, as they’re suddenly swept up into the excitement of the evening with Sam and Ronna and Bram and Lou and everyone else.