Chapter Text
Donna should have been in Delaware.
Well, “should have” was maybe a bit strong, but Donna couldn’t help thinking that maybe it was the right term, because even though she was pretty sure that there was nothing to write home about in Delaware, it was probably worlds better than where she found herself now, which was on a cold, dark bus in Madison, Wisconsin, in the middle of the night, on the way to the diner where she’d spend the night pouring coffee and watching the clock.
So it wasn’t just that she wasn’t in Delaware, it was the fact that she was here. And it wasn’t just being here, it was being here, on the bus, lacking even the luxury of her own vehicle to drive through the icy night.
She had a car, that wasn’t the problem, but the car needed new tires—had needed new tires for a while now—and it was getting too tricky to drive when the roads were icy, and even though she’d been saving for new tires, and she almost had enough, even, she’d made one big mistake, which was letting it slip to her boyfriend that she needed new tires.
And that, more than anything else, was how she’d wound up on the bus.
The night had started out normally, before that. She’d been on the couch, enjoying the little time she had left before leaving for work. She’d been reading the paper, scanning, as always, for news of her friends, news of the campaign, news that mattered.
And then her boyfriend had come through the door, not even pausing to shake off his wet clothes or boots outside, just tracking the dirty water right inside with him. Donna cringed, internally, wondering if she’d have time to clean it up before she went to work.
“You’re home early,” she commented, knowing better than to mention it in the form of a question.
“Oh, hey,” he said, not looking at her, in the casual way he always began bad news. “I’m going to drop my neurology class.”
“Drop it?” She asked, looking up at him, trying to stay calm, trying to coax her face away from the alarm she was feeling. “Why? Isn’t it kind of late in the semester for that?”
“Well, not drop it, exactly. It’s too late to drop it and get money back, I’ll have to withdraw from the class, but I’ll just take it in the fall instead. I just don’t have enough time with all of these classes.”
Donna bit her lip. “I think maybe we should be saving a little bit more,” she said. “My car’s going to need new tires soon, especially with all the ice. I barely made it here from New Hampshire. And between that and your summer clinicals tuition coming up, I don’t know if we can swing an extra class payment…”
He sighed, rolling his eyes. “I don’t get you, Donna,” he says. “This is my career we’re talking about. Don’t you see that that’s for us? I’m not doing this for me. The least you could do is appreciate the sacrifices I’m making. This is my education.”
What about my education? Donna thought, but she didn’t dare say it. It’s just that something was shifting; she was seeing the writing on the wall—writing that had been there before she’d ever gone to New Hampshire, except that she hadn’t seen it.
Because even though, in New Hampshire, she had been working a job that should have required her to have a degree, she hadn’t felt out of her element there—not like she did here, not like she did during all the long, lonely night shifts at the diner, when her only customers came in when the bars closed and drooled into cups of coffee.
She certainly didn’t need a degree for that; didn’t need one for the life that she had here. But that didn’t matter; and besides, there wasn’t time to dwell on it, not when he was still standing in front of her.
“Look, you can take the bus to the diner for a while, can’t you? That way you don’t even need the new tires. It’ll be warm soon, and then we can forget about it for a while.”
“I can’t stop using my car.”
“Why? The bus goes right by there. I’m making sacrifices, Donna. The least you could do is make some, too. If the car’s not safe, don’t use it. But I have to get through school.”
With that, he left the room. The conversation, as always, was over when he said it was, and Donna wondered if there’d been any point in her being there for it at all.
And so, that’s how Donna found herself on the bus that night, heading to the diner, worried that she was going to be late for the start of her shift at ten-thirty. She tried not to think about the fact that the last time she had been on a bus, it was with Josh, and it was so different from now.
With Josh, on the bus, she was always laughing, always warm, her shoulder pressed up against his as they huddled together on the seat, talking in hushed tones so as not to wake anyone else on the bus up while they talked.
Not that they didn’t also sleep on the bus, sometimes, and those were good times, too, when she’d wake up, suddenly, her head on Josh’s shoulder or his on hers, and her body would be warm with sleep (or was it just sleep?) and even though the nights were always too late and the mornings were always too early and there was never enough coffee to get by, really, she always felt so content waking up, always felt so purposeful, so secure in what she was doing.
She always felt necessary, then. She missed that.
And then, of course, there had been the nights that they weren’t on the bus at all, like the night that Donna had found herself in Erie, Pennsylvania, without a hotel room, without the money to get one, and without a way to sleep on the bus.
She usually shared a hotel room with C.J., but C.J. hadn’t stayed in Erie with them, and so Donna, not realizing that only half the campaign was going to stop for the night, leaving her and Josh and Toby and a few other staffers and assistants, most of whom Donna rarely interacted with, at a hotel in Erie, in between two days of events. The rest of the team had continued on, on the bus, after the first day, down to Pittsburgh, where they would hold an event at the same time as the second day in Erie, before passing back through Erie en route to Buffalo the next evening.
It was a convoluted arrangement, and maybe that was why Donna had misunderstood it. She’d known she couldn’t pay for a hotel room, and she’d known C.J. wasn’t going to be at the hotel with her, but she’d misunderstood the part about the bus, thought that the bus would be staying with the team in Erie, since it was a larger group, and she’d therefore planned to somehow sneak back onto the bus and stay the night there, instead of getting a room.
But that plan, obviously, had fallen through, and Donna was pacing out in front of the small lobby of the hotel, trying to come up with a plan, which was, basically, to sleep in the lobby, when Josh found her.
“It’s freezing out here!” he’d commented, rubbing his hands together. “Why aren’t you in your room?”
Donna looked down at her feet, toeing the sidewalk nervously. “I, um…I don’t have one.” She said, finally. “I usually stay with C.J., you know, and I just…I didn’t make an arrangement, this time.”
“Donna,” he said, and his eyes were questioning, but his voice was warm, so warm, like it always is. “You knew C.J. wasn’t coming on this trip by the time we left, why didn’t you say something earlier?”
She was afraid to meet his eyes at first, because she’s been questioned before, been questioned too many times, and all at once, it all came back—Donna, my tuition’s due, haven’t you been saving? Donna, why did the check bounce? Donna, did you turn the rent in on time? Donna, how dare you say we shouldn’t be spending our money on that! Don’t you understand the sacrifices I’m making for my education? —but when she looked up at Josh, there was nothing harsh or accusatory in his eyes; just warmth, like he sees her lack of a plan as a delightful quirk rather than a sign that she’s wrong for this, that she’s not qualified, that she doesn’t belong.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she admits. “I thought…I guess I thought I could sneak back onto the bus, or something, I didn’t realize the bus wasn’t staying with us here, I didn’t…I didn’t know that I couldn’t find a workaround.”
“Come on,” he said, gesturing towards the check-in desk with his shoulder. “I’ll buy you a room.”
Donna sighed, shaking her head. “When I went to check, you know, how much it cost, they told me there were no more rooms left, anyway. And I couldn’t let you do that, regardless. I’ll be fine.”
“You will not be fine, Donna, I’m not letting you stay out in the lobby. You need sleep, too.”
Donna sighed again, hesitating.
“There’s no rooms left?” He asked.
She shook her head, her face reddening, her eyes darting back towards the ground, away from his.
“Well then,” he said, “you’ll stay with me.”
“Josh,” she began, and she’s tempted by it, she really is, because her least favorite part of the day is usually the part where they say goodnight and she knows that she won’t see him until the morning comes, but she also knows it’s entirely inappropriate to share his room—he is her boss, and what’s more, she’s starting to realize more and more that her crush on him could quite easily get out of hand, especially if she keeps entertaining ideas like this, like sharing his room or holding on to him a bit too long on the rare occasion that they get to hug.
“Josh, I can’t ask that of you.”
“’Course you can,” he said. “And besides, you’re not asking, I’m offering. Everyone knows I can’t do my job without you, anyway, no one will think anything of it. Look, I’ll even let you wake me up if they forget the wake-up call, that way you’re on the clock.”
“On the clock,” she’d repeated, and she’s not even in the mood to make a comment about the pun, because the offer itself is too generous—it’s not just that he’s not angry with her, although it’s also that; it’s the way that he didn’t even hesitate, didn’t lecture her, didn’t make her feel embarrassed or less than, not for a moment. He didn’t make fun of her for not having a plan, or not having the money. He just shrugged it off and held the door open for her.
He didn’t make fun of her later, either, not once. Instead, he’d tossed her his “Bartlet for America” sweatshirt and an old pair of sweatpants when they’d made it into his room, realizing that she’d left her belongings—except for her tote bag—on the bus, as part of her ridiculous plan.
“You can wear these,” he’d said, “you’ll be more comfortable.”
She was more comfortable, in clothes that were warm and clean and smelled like him, like the familiar, homey smell that she’d wake up to on those days that they actually did fall asleep on the bus, which always made her want to snuggle closer to him, rather than do the sensible thing and move away.
He’d grabbed a blanket and a pillow from the shelf in the closet of the room and began to make a bed on the floor for himself before she’d realized what he was doing, and when she’d told him that she’d take the floor and he should have the bed, he’d shaken his head. “I’m fine, here,” he said, “really.” And then he’d wrapped the blanket around himself and given her a dimpled grin, as if to prove it.
But Donna had shaken her head. “If I’m not sleeping in the lobby, you’re not sleeping on the floor,” she’d said.
He’d shaken his head back and smiled at her again, and then, once he’d checked again if she was sure, they’d slid into the bed together, Donna leaning over to turn the lamp off on the bedside table as they did.
They’d been quiet after that; though they’d fallen asleep together before, it was always much more accidental, and this felt different—or at least it did to Donna. Even as sleep began to claim her, a part of her fought against it, knowing that when morning came, they’d rush out of the room, and she’d never again find herself in a bed next to him, like this, feeling perfectly cozy and safe, so safe.
“Hey, Donna?” He asked, after a while, and Donna hardly heard him, since she’s been so comfortable, so warm, that sleep is already finding her. In fact, she wasn’t sure she was hearing him at all—the line between dreaming and awake felt impossibly thin, all of a sudden, and if Josh was speaking to her, it was more than likely in dreamland, not here in the real world, where he was very much her boss and she was very much his assistant, and the very fact that they were sharing a bed was a sign that reality was a little warped.
“Hmm?” she asked, faintly, barely awake.
After that, she was certain she’d been dreaming, certain Josh hadn’t said what she’d thought she heard him say, which was: “I just—I just want you to know, I never want you to feel like you’re not valued, or something. I don’t want you to have to worry about stuff like this, you know? I’ll make sure you have a room next time, or we’ll—we’ll find a solution, okay? You’re too important to the team to miss out, or to have to feel worried like this.”
Donna didn’t say anything in response, certain that if she hadn’t been sleeping before, she certainly had started dreaming somewhere between “solution” and “worried”.
She almost didn’t hear his final sentence, the one he almost whispered, before he realized that she’d hardly heard anything he’d said, and taken in even less of it.
“You’re too important to me,” he finished softly, and then he had rolled over and fallen asleep himself.
They’d never spoken of it, after that, and that was why Donna was certain that she’d conjured it all up, after all. Because even though Josh was like that, did say things like that, sometimes, she couldn’t believe that he would have said it then, that he would have said it while sharing a bed with her, that night in Erie.
And the next morning, it had been business as usual. They had rushed off to their event, then back on the bus, and they were in Buffalo before Donna even had time to think of it again.
But now she was thinking of it; now, here, she was thinking of it again. She’s off the bus now, and the night is beginning to pass like it always does, with her endlessly wiping down the counter, pouring the occasional cup of coffee, keeping an eye trained on the clock, and staying in the back, behind the kitchen, away from the windows, when the diner is empty, because she doesn’t like feeling so exposed, under the fluorescent lights, knowing that anyone on the street can see her, by herself, in the dead of night.
In the back, she listens for the bells of the door opening and closing, and she tries not to think about the campaign, about her friends, about where they are. But every time the door opens, she perks up, unable to keep the irrational hope from rising up in her heart that maybe the campaign has come to Wisconsin, maybe he’s about to walk through the door, ostensibly for a cup of coffee, but mostly for her.
It’s then, usually, that she begins her nightly ritual of opening her wallet, finding within it an old business card of Josh’s, which he’d once written a list of dates and locations the campaign would be heading to on the back of, making a list for her to always have handy, because it was “less cumbersome than a calendar”.
At the time, she’d laughed. “I’m your calendar,” she’d pointed out. “You don’t carry one anyway.”
He’d grinned at her, holding up the card. “Much less cumbersome than carrying you around, then.”
But then he’d explained further. “I need to have these dates and places accessible at all times, just to make sure we don’t get lost,” he’d said. And it had made sense—after all, the writing down of the list was coming on the heels of Josh telling Sam that the “Fayetteville” they were heading to next week was the one in North Carolina, when in fact it was the one in West Virginia.
It’s that card that she still holds on to, that she returns to now, if only to remind her heart that he won’t be walking into the diner, unexpectedly, all of a sudden, that he’s not looking for her, that he’s nowhere near her at all.
And there’s more to it than knowing where he is, now that they're so far apart, knowing that he’s in Delaware while she’s in Wisconsin—it’s also getting to run the pads of her fingers over the embossed navy letters of “Joshua Lyman” on the front of the card, then running them over the press of his black ballpoint pen where he’d written the list of dates and locations on the back, his messy scrawl somehow conjuring his voice, which even in her head—even in the frantic, tired way she remembers it, as he listed each date and place for her aloud as he wrote them down—is a salve for the weariness in her bones.
Because she remembers how he’d chuckled when he finished, handing the card to her. “I don’t know who I’m doing this for,” he’d said. “I’m never lost when I’m with you, and if you’re ever lost, that means I’ve been lost for ages.”
He’d smiled at her softly, gently, then, as though he’d felt like he’d said something more than he’d meant, he’d blushed a little, wiped his palms on his pants, and then said, “hold on to that, okay?” and then wandered out of his office.
It was nights like these, in the back of the empty diner, that Donna let herself think about that moment, let herself think about what it might have meant. She’d chosen something else, in the end. She’d chosen Wisconsin, she’d chosen to leave.
But she wondered if what Josh had said was still true, if it even ever had been.
Because here she was, in an empty diner in Madison, the cold, icy night stretched out endlessly before her, nothing to look forward to but a long, lonely bus ride when dawn came at last, and she was realizing, in little pieces that had started to come together slowly at first, but were now snapping together in quick succession, like the last twenty pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, that maybe she had made the wrong choice.
She had the sinking realization with every passing day that she was lost again, lost in a way that she hadn’t been since the first time she made her way to New Hampshire, since before God or the universe or someone had smiled down on her and guided her to the office of Josh Lyman, whose boyish messiness and dimples were disarming in equal measure, but both unmatched in charm by the gentle kindness and care of his heart.
She’d been found there; that was what she had felt when he’d taken off his lanyard and handed it to her, and she’d looked up in awe at those inconvenient dimples, recognizing in a way she hadn’t been able to articulate then that this was the beginning of something—of home, of belonging, of being found.
But now, she’d wound up lost again. Despite it all, despite the laughter and the warmth and the “you can stay with me”, and the way she never felt more safe than when she was hearing her name come out of his mouth, hearing a fondness in the way he pronounced it that washed over her like a warm bath—despite all of that, or maybe because of it, she’d run away, back to Wisconsin, back to her boyfriend, back to a life where she was no one.
Despite—or because—of all of it, she was lost.
And if what Josh had said to her, that day when he’d written everything down on that business card, which was beginning to feel worn and thin from her daily inspection, but which she still held onto, even here, even now—if “if you’re lost, then I’ve been lost for ages” had ever been true--she couldn’t help but wonder: where did that leave Josh?