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He shifts in his seat to try to get more comfortable. His head leans against the back of it and he tries to close his eyes, tries to drift into sleep for at least a little bit. Sleep is eluding him, the prospect of a full night of rest too few and far between these days. He’s restless and anxious because what will happen when he inevitably wakes up – it’s terrifying.
It’s enough to keep him awake, to keep him running circles in his head for hours on end. He looks towards the window, staring out into the black night sky and he doesn’t dare to dream.
His eyes eventually grow heavy, fighting every instinct his body has and closing against his will. It’s nice, the brief sense of calm that washes over him right before he falls asleep, but it pales in contrast with the overwhelming fear that hits him when he’s scared awake.
She sits in her car for almost a half hour before finding the courage to walk up to the door.
It’s silly, Donna thinks, that she’s nervous about going to the one place outside the White House where she’s always felt safe – where she’s never felt unwelcome. Until now, anyways.
It’s not that he doesn’t want her there, per say, but he hasn’t exactly told her to stop by either. She knows he’s stubborn, has known since the day she met him, but she thought maybe this would be different. It’s the one day a year where things usually are.
So, she trudges up to the front door of his building, but her hand hovers over the buzzer. It’s just a buzzer, it shouldn’t have this kind of hold over her, but it does. It does because she’s never used it – not since the summer of 2000 when he gave her a key the day she took him home from the hospital – and she doesn’t know why she feels like she needs to start today.
The loud noise of the buzzer would probably just make him jump anyways. It doesn’t, usually, but today is not a usual day.
She pulls her keys out of her coat pocket and slides one in the lock. It turns easily, and she makes sure to shut the front door behind her.
The halls are decorated minimally, just the way he likes it, but she thinks it looks nice. Lights hang along the hallway between neighboring doors, red ribbons along the banisters—some of his neighbors even have wreaths on their doors.
She hits the second-floor landing and squares her shoulders before knocking on the door.
“Josh,” she calls out, knuckles rapping on his front door, “it’s me.”
She’s met with silence, and she doesn’t know whether or not to be surprised.
Because she knows he’s going to resist it. He always does in the beginning, every year without fail. He’ll tell her he’s fine and she shouldn’t worry about him so much. He’ll say that he’ll call if he starts to feel bad, but he knows that won’t make her leave. Nothing ever does.
“Josh,” she echoes through the door.
Because she knows that even though he says he’s fine, he never is. He’s jittery, more so than his normal level, and his eyes can’t seem to focus on one thing for more than five seconds, and when he jokes about the holiday, it always feels a little too forced. He’s never been as bad as the night after the broken window, but he’s never exactly fine. Not on this night.
“Josh, come on” she knocks again, “it’s Christmas Eve.”
And so, she stays with him, all night, every Christmas Eve since the one when she took him home after getting seven stitches in the palm of his hand. She’ll wrap them both up in blankets on the couch, and they’ll watch black and white Christmas movies until they inevitably pass out, only waking enough to both move to his bed sometime in the night. They don’t talk about it; they just do it.
She bangs on the door one more time.
In the morning she makes pancakes with chocolate chips (she learned to bring her own ingredients after the first year) and he’ll smile softly at her from across the kitchen, slumped in a chair in his pajamas that are two sizes two big. She’ll hold his hand when they lounge all day, doing nothing and everything, so long as it doesn’t have to do with work.
And when he orders them Chinese food for dinner (“A Jewish Christmas tradition,” he tells her) and halfway through the eggrolls she starts talking about the red and green cookies her mom always makes for dessert, he’ll remember where they are and what day it is, and he’ll feel guilty.
He’ll tell her she should have gone home for the holidays. She’ll tell him that she did.
“Josh,” she calls out, letting her forehead lean against the door, “please.”
Silence radiates from the other side of the door, and for half a second, she thinks maybe he fell asleep. That thought leaves her as quick as it came because Josh has never gone to bed before eight o’clock a day in his life, and he doesn’t do so well with the sleeping on this particular anniversary.
“Fine,” she says, still standing in the empty hallway, “don’t open the door. I’m still not leaving.”
She turns to rest her back against the door, her head hitting the wood a second after her shoulders. She doesn’t remember ever being this tired on a holiday before.
“You’re gonna let me in eventually,” she reminds him. “You always do.”
It’s true; he does always let her in eventually. She thought this stage was behind them though, the first few Christmas Eves had to take some convincing, but the last couple had been easy. Well, easy may not be the right word, but in terms of him letting her in the door, that’s what it was.
The third year she came, he talked to her in the doorway for a half hour before inevitably (and basically against his will) he let her inside. The second year he didn’t even open the door for the first fifteen minutes.
Donna slides down the door, the weight of the day – the week, the month, the year if she’s being honest with herself – enough to drag her to the floor. It’s cold on the ground, but her jacket is still warm enough and she has enough snacks in her tote bag to last a week.
“Are you okay in there?” she calls out to him, and for a second, she thinks she hears movement. It’s just the fridge, though, the motors shifting gears and making an otherwise unimportant noise.
Donna sighs and lets her shoulders drop just a little. This is stupid. She has a key. She could just let herself in, sit herself down on the couch, and tell him she’s not leaving until the holiday is over and she knows that he’s okay. She could do that.
But she won’t.
“Look, if you’re mad at me…” she shakes her head. He shouldn’t be – he has no right to be – but he definitely is. “If you’re still mad at me for the thing, well, I’m still mad at you too.”
And she is. She’s so unbelievably pissed at him—or at least she was a day and a half ago. Mad that he wouldn’t listen, that he wouldn’t take her seriously, that he left her no choice but to do what she did.
“If you’re mad at me for quitting…” she starts in a much quieter voice, staring at her hands held together in her lap, “I am too.”
It’s not that she wanted to leave the White House, it’s that she had to. At least, that’s what she says in the speech she has prepared in her head. She needs more, and she wasn’t getting that from her little desk in the bullpen. Her original plan was to see if he had any better position to offer her (which she knew was unlikely) or to see if CJ or Toby had something instead. CJ just gave Charlie a job two months ago, it’s not like it would have been unheard of.
But he didn’t listen. He put her down and put her off and eventually she snapped. After that, there wasn’t much she could do but pack her bags and leave.
Leave the White House, that is.
“I’m not gonna apologize,” she calls through the door, “if that’s what you’re waiting for. It was time for me to move on, and you know it.”
Crickets.
“You should’ve known it,” she says quieter.
“I know you’re in there,” she turns her head to press her ear to the door, listening for signs of life. “Toby told me you left the office two hours ago, and everywhere else is closed by now.”
She thought about that on the way over. If he wasn’t at the office, the odds were pretty high that he’d be home. Even higher on Christmas Eve, with all of his usual haunts (or haunt, really, just the Hawk and Dove) closing early for the holiday. Putting aside her pride for a minute, she called Toby from her car and asked if Josh was still at the office.
“No,” he answered with a sigh, “no, he went home. Why—did he call you?”
“No,” Donna sighed back, “he didn’t.”
“I told him to call you.”
Donna smiled at the gesture even though Toby couldn’t see her. “He won’t.”
That’s half the reason she showed up at his apartment tonight. Yes, it’s their tradition, of course, but it’s also part of her plan to get him to listen. To make him listen.
“Josh,” she tries again, her voice sharp before it melts against the silence. “You could at least answer the door.”
He doesn’t.
This game of chicken he’s playing might fool everyone else, but not her. She knows why he’s mad – or at least why he thinks he’s mad. She left. It’s as simple as that. In his eyes, she left. Again.
But it’s not like last time. In fact, it’s nothing like last time. Back then she was running away, running to safety and familiarity, running from one man to another in two very different ways. It’s different this time. Now, she’s running for herself.
“I didn’t leave because of you,” she tries to explain. “I didn’t leave you.”
Donna takes a breath, thinking about how many times she’s going to have to tell him this before he believes it. Before he believes her. If he’s this mad already, he’s really going to lose it when he hears the rest of her plan.
“I’m heading to New Hampshire in a couple of days,” she tells him, because it sounds a lot better than I’m leaving DC for a while. “I’m sure by now you’ve heard why.”
She’s poking the bear and she knows it. If anything is going to snap him out of whatever headspace he’s currently in, it’s going to be the rage filled disdain he feels for the Vice President and Will Bailey.
Donna always liked Will or liked him well enough to get along. He's no Sam Seaborn, that was for sure, and he never could quite grow into the giant shoes Sam left behind. Still, he was smart and sometimes witty, and Donna never got an overwhelmingly bad vibe from him, even if the vibes weren’t always good.
He was nice enough to give her a job (or an interview at least) when he stumbled upon her on her way out of the White House, box full of personal items in hand.
She put the box in her car and circled back to the Vice President’s office. Will greeted her with open arms (metaphorically, of course, no one actually does that, save for maybe Josh) and hired her within minutes.
“I think I could be good at this,” she tries to tell him. “I think this could be what’s next for me.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that this job does happen to fall on the list of anything that doesn’t have to do with Josh Lyman, CJ’s voice from a year ago ringing in her ear as she signed her new contract.
“You could come with us,” she throws out halfheartedly, knowing he’d never ditch the President. Not for Bingo Bob.
She’s met with silence.
She lets him sit on that for a while, trying to wait out his anger and displeasure at the prospect of her going to work anyone who isn’t Jed Bartlet.
She didn’t want to leave; she had no choice. That’s what she decides to tell him once he opens the door and let her inside. She’ll tell him this is a good thing, for her, for them, for everyone involved really, while she makes hot chocolate, and he absentmindedly traces the line that runs across his palm.
She’ll tell him about her new office that Will has promised her while he pretends to think about which boring Christmas movie he hates less, and when he finally chooses and puts one on, she’ll tell him about which pictures she’s planning to have sit on her desk.
(One of her and the President, one of the whole staff from the night of the 1998 election, and her favorite: the one of her and Josh from the last inaugural ball).
And he’ll mock her for wasting valuable space in her campaign trail suitcase with pictures, talking over the movie the entire time, but when she threatens not to actually bring any of them, he’ll say well, maybe one can’t hurt.
When they fall asleep on the couch or in his bed, he’ll tell her softly that he’s going to miss her while she’s away, and maybe that’s reason enough not to go. She’ll tell him it’s not, but she’s going to miss him too, and they’ll hold each other until the sun comes up.
In the morning they’ll talk strategy over how to beat Hoynes (again) while she makes pancakes, and he’ll talk about his concerns with Vinick getting the Republican nomination while she holds his hand and traces his scar lovingly.
And when they eat Chinese food for Christmas dinner, she’ll remind him again that even though she’s going to New Hampshire, that Washington will always be her home. She’ll remind him that even when she leaves, she always comes back.
She always comes back to him.
That daydream is enough to last her a while, but she has to come back to reality at some point. For her, that reality is sitting in a cold dark hallway on Christmas Eve while her best friend pouts behind the door.
Donna checks her watch. She’s been here for over an hour.
“Josh,” she calls out again, standing up and stretching her legs. “Josh, come on,” she pounds on the door with her fist, over and over again, “let me in already.”
She keeps knocking, not letting up even when her knuckles start to hurt, she just turns her fist and uses the side of her hand instead. It’s a dull noise instead of the sharp knock, but it gets her point across just fine. He still doesn’t answer.
And that’s when she starts to worry.
Worry about what, she doesn’t know – there’s only about a million worse case scenarios going through her head right now, starting with panic attacks and ending with glass cut skin dripping blood on to a hardwood floor.
Her chest feels tighter, and it’s getting harder to breathe with each second he doesn’t answer the door. Her mind is racing, and she can’t make it stop.
“Josh,” her voice cracks on the vowel, tears starting to form in her eyes. “Josh, open the door.”
She doesn’t let up until a neighbor sticks their head out into the hallway. She apologizes with a smile before turning back to Josh’s door, almost out of options.
Almost.
She pulls her key ring out of her pocket again and shuffles past her car key to the handful of small silver ones all in a ring. Apartment key. Front door key. Josh’s office key. She swipes the back of her hand over her face to try to clear the tears, but it just smudges her makeup, and it gets in her eyes.
She grabs the last key on the ring and sticks it in the lock, shoulder all ready to push the door open when it clicks, except—it doesn’t.
The key doesn’t turn. The lock doesn’t click.
She pulls the key ring out of the door like it burned her, stepping away and pocketing the keys faster than the first tear rolls down her cheek.
He’s moved on.
That’s the only explanation she can think of. She’s been gone a day and a half, and he’s already changed the locks on her. Or worse, he changed them weeks ago and never thought to tell her about it. Probably forgot he even gave her a key in the first place.
(And if she double checked the keys or the lock, or even been able to see correctly through the tears, she might’ve seen that the key in her hands was not his apartment key, but rather the key to her new office Will gave her yesterday. The last spot on the ring has always been reserved for him, but in all her panic she didn’t notice in that his key is now actually one space to the left.)
“Josh,” she calls out one more time, voice cracked and broken, fist hovering over the door but she can’t bring herself to knock again. She releases her grip, letting her palm press against the wood right next to where her forehead is.
“You call me,” is all she can think of to say. “You call me if you need me. If you need anything tonight. Or any night. Okay?”
The silence is getting to be too painful to keep bearing, the only sound coming in response is the echo of her voice down the hallway.
“You give me a call,” she sniffles, “when you’re ready to forgive me.”
She leaves him with that, the last card in her rapidly dwindling deck to throw in a desperate play. Guilt. It’s his kryptonite, especially when it comes to her, and she thinks that even if it doesn’t work today, it will work soon.
It has to.
She leaves his apartment building and steps out into the cold on a late Christmas Eve, wind whipping against her face and stinging her eyes, adding to the tears already there.
She cries in her car for twenty minutes before she feels calm enough to go home.
She leaves for New Hampshire the next day.
Josh shifts in his seat to try to get more comfortable, but he’s never been able to sleep on airplanes. His head leans against the back of the chair and he tries to close his eyes, tries to drift into sleep for at least a little bit. Sleep is eluding him, the prospect of a full night of rest too few and far between these days with the impending final year of the administration—with seemingly no one to take the place in the Oval Office.
He’s restless and anxious because what will happen when he inevitably wakes up – trying to get a three term Congressman to run for President – it’s terrifying.
It’s enough to keep him awake, to keep him running circles in his head for hours on end. His nine-point plan swimming laps in his head, going over each bullet point with a fine-tooth comb. He looks towards the window, staring out into the black night sky and he doesn’t dare to dream of victory – doesn’t dare to even dream of Matt Santos saying yes.
His eyes eventually grow heavy, fighting every instinct his body has and closing against his will. It’s nice, the brief sense of calm that washes over him right before he falls asleep, but it pales in contrast with the overwhelming fear that hits him when he’s startled awake an hour later.
“Sir,” the flight attendant’s hand on his shoulder startles him, “we’re landing soon.”
He nods his thanks and tries to shake the wave of anxiety his abrupt awakening has caused. The Houston lights sparkle below as he rubs at his neck, the muscles cramped from falling asleep sitting up with no one to lean on.
He misses her already, only gone for a day but leaving a huge hole in his life. Toby’s right – he should call her, but he’s the victim here! At least he thinks he is. He can’t make the first move.
And maybe he can convince her to come back. Not to the White House, but to him. Maybe if Matt Santos says yes, he can call her with an opportunity, one that’s leagues better than whatever she has going with Russell. If Matt Santos says yes, maybe they can run the campaign they always talked about—always dreamed about running.
And if Matt Santos says yes, maybe the campaign won’t be the only new journey they start on together.
But that’s a big if.