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Josh stares at Donna across the hotel breakfast area. Their campaigns happen to be staying at the same place again, and a lot of the staffers for both candidates are catching an early complementary breakfast before heading out. Josh should be concentrating on the add buy memo he’s supposed to be reading while he eats, but his eyes can’t quite stay off of her. She looks good. She’s talking animatedly to some of the other Russell people about something he can’t quite hear, but she looks confident and competent and passionate about whatever stance she’s arguing. She looks healthy.
Seeing her on these campaign stops is always simultaneously a relief and a punch to the gut. It’s like all his emotions surrounding her have mixed together until they're inextricable from one another, and they all hit at once. The joy and the pain at this point are no longer distinct or competing or in any way separate entities, but a single swirl stronger than its component parts. There’s his old, simple joy at seeing her; ingrained over so many years that by this point it will probably never fade. There’s the heartache at the reminder that she left, which he can sometimes ignore when he’s not around her, but always comes back with a vengeance as soon as he sees her again. There’s the relief to get to be in her presence again, like a part of himself is missing when she’s gone. There’s the anger at how she left and how much it hurt him. But overwhelmingly, there’s the solace of seeing her alive. To just see her is enough. To just see her is never enough.
Josh has made many bargains with God in his lifetime. God wasn’t all that great at keeping them, or maybe just refused to accept most of them but, then again, Josh supposed that he wasn’t all that great at living up to the promises he made either. As a child, he had begged God to bring Joanie back, but of course that never happened no matter what he offered. By the time his father passed, he was old enough to know better, but part of him still pleaded that it was all a mistake and hoped that when he landed in Connecticut, his dad would greet him and laugh about all the confusion. He probably shouldn’t mention to Leo or the President what he’d been willing to sacrifice for that. And he had certainly sent up pleas on election days to help his candidate win, promising if they did that he’d work as hard as he could to make the world a better place. Maybe that wasn’t really a fair bargain, because he would do it anyways, but at least it was one he could be sure to keep.
Josh doesn’t consider himself particularly religious, but at his most desolate times, he finds himself sending up prayers, pleas, and frantic promises to anyone that might help. But the most desperate bargain of his lifetime was also, perhaps, the only one that actually worked. Most of the time he knows (he thinks) that it was the top medical team that saved her. That it was doctors, nurses, machines, modern medicine, and just plain luck responsible for the miracle of bringing her back to him. That bargaining with God (probably) had nothing to do with it. But part of him remembers just how easily a pulmonary embolism can go bad. Remembers the fear in her eyes before they put her under, and a heartbreaking, shaky word: “scared.” Remembers warnings of potential brain damage.
And he knows he promised anything if only she’d live. Anything at all. And there she is: Alive. So if he cannot talk to her across this space, cannot hold her, cannot ever tell her how he really feels; if he only gets to see her from a distance, well, perhaps that is the price to be paid. He can still remember the pure, euphoric relief at seeing her wake up from the second surgery, at hearing her whisper his name, and recognize, and talk to him. He had never seen a more beautiful sight in the world, and his heart swelled with absolute awe at her and the simple beauty of her being alive. And now, even at a distance, at least she’s alive. At least she’s still alive.
He knows the world doesn’t actually work that way. He's tried to explain to himself too often to count that it’s not really his fault. That he couldn’t have known what would happen when he sent her there. That he shouldn’t blame himself. That her quitting is not a punishment for sending her into harm’s way, nor the price of the bargain for sparing her life. That his very love for someone is not a bad omen of misfortune. He knows these things; he just can’t believe them.
Across the room, Donna stands up from her table, gathering her bag and taking her empty yogurt cup to the trash. The rest of the Russell staffers also make moves to get going, and Josh distantly notes that he should go soon too. As she starts back towards the elevators, she finally catches his eye and notices him staring. She offers a wan smile, a hint of concern in her eyes, but then she turns and leaves.
No matter how often he tells himself that it doesn’t work this way, part of his brain still thinks: she lived, and is healthy and not brain damaged, so maybe her leaving is the price. And if that’s true (which he knows doesn’t make sense, but still can’t manage to get the belief out of his head) then her survival is more than, more than, more than enough. But, God, if it doesn’t still hurt like his heart left with her.