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Day 2,844
CJ takes him home after work one day, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that she knows. She looks far too goddamn sympathetic not to. Hell, maybe it's obvious. "Get it together, would you please?" He remembers Leo asking, years ago now. Maybe everyone knows. Maybe they always have.
"You weren't like this when Sam left," CJ says gently. "And he's your best friend."
"People move on." Another Leo truism. He knows what Donna would say about his gruff persona - "Doesn't he know he trades in love?"
"This is different," Josh says hoarsely, and he's embarrassed to find himself near tears. He coughs. "It's different, CJ."
"I know. That's what I'm trying to say."
"Can we please not talk about this?"
"You had to have known she wouldn't stay in that job forever," she continues as though she hadn't heard him. "You had to have known she was unhappy."
"That's just it," he says, and there's a note of defeat in his voice that he loathes. "I didn't. I keep replaying it... I keep replaying everything. I mean, these past few months... Years, even, and I can't... I'm just not-"
"Maybe you're not remembering everything as it was," CJ tells him softly - breaking the news as though to a small child who's time has come to learn the truth about Santa Claus. "Maybe you're just remembering the good parts."
Day 1
It's a full day of directing phone calls, scheduling meetings, and annotating memos, but by the end of it, Josh's new assistant is still beaming at him the same way she had when he first handed her his ID badge that morning.
She collapses beside him on the bus, flushed and sweating through her once crisp white shirt - yet her smile remains.
He hardly looks up as he roots through his backpack. "Not bad work today," he offers begrudgingly, intuiting that she's waiting for some kind of assessment from him. It's an understatement, of course - but he doesn't want to reward her smugness.
At this half-compliment, she glows brighter than the neon aisle strips. "I told you I could be good at this," she replies in a singsong voice while effortlessly procuring the polling numbers he was looking for.
He hmphs derisively, accepting the papers. "We'll see if you last the week."
"A week?" She scoffs. "Ye of little faith."
That's when he starts counting the days - just to see if she can make it to seven. And when she surpasses seven (she greets him in the hotel lobby with a dorky victory dance, so she must've been counting too), he keeps counting. He's not sure why. Even when she quits, and she's off in Wisconsin with an asshole who doesn't deserve her - ostensibly never to return - he ticks the days off by habit.
_ days since last cosmic accident. _ days since last Big Bang. _ days since he was able to fall asleep at night thinking of anything else.
He sets his watch by her. He spins in her orbit.
This is why - even though he pointedly sends her flowers in April - he knows exactly when the anniversary of their first meeting is. He knows when all their anniversaries are. There's one almost every day.
Day 45
If Josh knew anything about love, he would've known he loved Donna Moss the moment he started hating her.
But he's not that insightful.
(He doesn't know what he's doing anymore - counting the days since he met her, or counting down the days until she leaves him again.)
Day 10
"Josh." CJ plops into the booth beside him, knocking her shoulder into his. "Am I hallucinating, or is your twenty-year-old intern singing a love ballad to you right now?"
Everybody loves somebody sometime...
Josh knocks her back without taking his eyes off Donna, who's on stage. "More like she's singing it at me. To prove a point. A convoluted point, in a convoluted argument that really only exists in her addled little mind."
Everybody falls in love somehow...
There's an undeniable mischief in her smile as she croons. She's performing the song as though she's somehow embarrassing him, not herself. It's really something to behold.
"Right. Okay."
"And she's twenty-four," he adds, though he immediately regrets it. "And not an intern. My assistant, Donna."
"Right," CJ repeats with clear skepticism. "I know her name. Is this going to be a problem?"
"No, CJ. It's not."
Day 3,076
He remembers the first time she didn't bring him coffee. The first time she did. He remembers the first time she called him by his full name, the way it rolled off her tongue - like an incantation and a reprimand all at once. The first time she called him "baby." The first time she called a rolly polly a "pill bug." The first time she stepped out of her hotel room in a floor length evening gown she'd borrowed from CJ.
He remembers the first time she pressed a cool hand to his forehead to check for a fever. The first time she changed his bandages. The first time she cooked dinner for him and his mother, and they both assured her that the onions were merely caramelized and not burnt.
He remembers the first time she looked at him with adoration. And he remembers the first time she looked at him without it.
He remembers the first time he couldn't get to her, and he wished helplessly that he'd trained for a real job - a pilot. A medic. A surgeon. Anyone who could do something other than sit on an airplane and pray.
He remembers the first time he prayed since he was in grade school.
He remembers the first time he saw another man kiss her. The first time he bought her red roses. The first time he silently bargained his life for hers, and God smiled on him. (It was not the first time God smiled on him, because he'd met her to begin with.)
He remembers the first time she left him. And the first time she came back.
He remembers the second time she left him.
"And if you think I don't miss you every day..."
How could he not? (When every day belongs to her? When every date on the calendar is tainted by association?)
Day 23
They're in Virginia when it comes out that Donna Moss has never seen the ocean.
"You've never seen-" Josh splutters.
"I've been to the Great Lakes!" She cuts him off haughtily, heat rising in her cheeks as she closes the copier. "Three of them, in fact. And that's practically the same thing."
Josh turns to the rest of the assembled staff, arms stretched outward in incredulity. "Are you guys hearing this? Donna, it is not the same thing. That's why, if you look in an encyclopedia, or, I don't know, a third grade textbook, you'll see that 'lake' and 'ocean' have different definitions. And different pictures, too - do you at least look at the pictures?"
She glares at him. "This has nothing to do with me being young, okay? Lots of people go their whole lives without seeing the ocean."
"No, young isn't what I was going to say. Sheltered, maybe. To a cult-like extreme. Are you one of those Children of the Corn?"
Shaking her head irritably, she starts passing out copies of their agenda for the day. "I'm from Wisconsin. That movie is set in Nebraska. Which I'd think you would know, Mr. Walking Electoral Map."
"Right. Ethanol."
CJ chuckles as Donna hands her an agenda. "Donna, I hate to agree with him, but..."
Donna balks. "Not you, too!"
CJ holds up her hands defensively. "I'm a west coast girl! Now, if you ask me, the beaches on this side are a little lackluster, but that's a discussion for another day. Regardless, any ocean is... Well, it's worth seeing in your lifetime, I'll say that much."
"Thank you!"
With CJ on board, and Sam soon enough (never one to miss an opportunity to pull out his Tommy Hilfiger sweater collection), plans are rapidly made to hit the beach after their last event of the day and introduce Donna to the wonders of the coast. She acts begrudging about the whole thing, but Josh can tell she's excited - whether about the beach, or about the team rallying to do something for her, he's not sure.
She does an expert job of covering her disappointment when their plans inevitably go awry. When a scandal with the Governor of Connecticut demands a rapid response and an impromptu press conference that swallows their evening, she doesn't complain once - which pulls at Josh's heartstrings even more than if she had.
Their merry band of beachgoers convenes around nine and declares the outing a lost cause - with CJ frantically crossing out lines in the next morning's address and Sam glaring over her shoulder. Even Josh, much as he wishes he could salvage the trip, is already preparing an argument for Leo as to why they need to reroute to the Northeast again by week's end.
All Donna says in the moment is, "Great, this means I can continue to claim that the ocean's overrated. What can I do to help?"
But at two in the morning - not long after he'd fallen asleep - Josh finds himself being gently shaken awake. He reluctantly pulls the pillow from over his head and blinks open one eye, all the while damning the fact that he ever got them adjoining rooms.
Damning the adjoining rooms, that is, until she sinks onto the bed beside him with an apologetic smile and his mind goes blank with static. "Josh?"
"Mm?"
"I think I actually would like to see the ocean. Tonight."
"Yeah?"
"If you're up for it."
He's dressed in a matter of minutes, and banging on CJ's and Sam's respective doors in another five. He verbally attributes their decision to join the expedition to his superb negotiating skills, but he knows it's all Donna. She practically vibrates in the hallway, selling the adventure like they're sneaking out of sleep-away camp.
It's stupid, of course - they're all sleep deprived, and delirious, and very much needed at full capacity in the morning - but they go anyway. He hypothesizes that perhaps Donna has the same effect on everyone: a suspension of all logic and reason.
Not long after they arrive, Sam and CJ take off down the beach, following a cluster of ghost crabs. Josh watches as their retreating flashlight beams bob haltingly down the shore. (Sam, a former boy scout, always prepared.)
He turns his gaze back to Donna, who has removed her shoes and socks to take a few hesitant steps toward the encroaching tide. He does the same and walks slowly to join her, arms folded against the wind.
"Well?" He prompts, watching her face as she stares out across the moonlit sea.
"Mm," she murmurs, a crescent smile dancing on her lips. "It's okay, I guess. Looks a lot like Lake Michigan to me."
He gapes at her. "You're fucking with me."
She grins. "Sounds about the same, too. You're sure the encyclopedia classifies them differently?"
"C'mon." He grabs her hand, pulling her further in - until they're standing in a couple inches of freezing water - before he bends down, cupping his hands. He straightens up, and in one rapid motion, splashes it directly into her open, trusting face. "Tell me. Does it taste like Lake Michigan?"
She splutters, a playful fury in her eyes. "I can't believe you!"
Realizing what's about to happen, he tries to take off back to dry land, but she's too fast. She shovels armfuls of seawater at him, with no regard for either of their clothing.
They shiver all the way back to the hotel, even with the heat on full blast. Donna falls asleep with the Atlas open in her lap as the sun rises in their rearview window. Squinting at the map rather than wake her, Josh decides right then and there that when Mandy rejoins them in Florida on Tuesday, he's breaking up with her.
Day 28
Mandy rejoins them in Florida, and that night - in some dim hotel ballroom during another rubber chicken fundraiser - Josh tells her that he loves her.
Mandy blinks at him. "No you don't," she says flatly.
He kicks the worn carpet. "Okay. How'd you know?"
She looks back out over the crowd, swilling a drink in one hand with detachment. There's a hint of tension in her jaw that he fails to notice. "You just told me."
He swears under his breath.
"If this is your way of saying you missed me," Mandy starts, "then I missed you too."
"Okay. Then yes. Yes, it is."
She squeezes his arm. "What happened to that assistant you had, by the way? I haven't seen her all day."
"She, uh, quit." Four days ago. Four.
"Ah. They seem to have a habit of doing that, don't they?"
Day 10
"What do you mean you don't believe in love?"
He chuckles into his beer bottle, amused by the shock on her face. "It's love, okay? Not Santa Claus. Maybe believing isn't the right word. It's not that I don't think it exists, I just think it's... Not as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. Not that important, I guess. I definitely don't think we need a holiday for it."
"Hm." Donna's expression has settled from shock into plain disappointment. "I'll bet you didn't believe in Santa Claus, either."
"I'm Jewish."
"Ah." He watches as she catalogues this piece of information, the same way she has with countless other tidbits over the past few days. She's long since memorized his lunch order, his cell number, his education history. It's not unlike having a rather overzealous biographer tagging along with him. "And did you ruin it for the other kids? Just like you're doing now, with love?"
"I'm not ruining anything for anybody," he defends in a voice that's dangerously close to a whine. "And no, I didn't. Though I may have implied that Santa Claus is anti-semitic."
She considers this. "Not an unreasonable assertion."
"Wasn't quite as allegorical as you were hoping it would be, huh?"
"No," she admits. "But I remain undeterred in my quest to psychoanalyze you."
"I get the sneaking suspicion that you're rarely deterred by anything."
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, gaze switching to her fingernails. "You'd be surprised."
Earlier that day, Donna had asked him what he'd sent Mandy. He'd looked at her with confusion, to which she'd informed him with utter horror that today was Valentine's Day, and didn't he know it was Valentine's Day, and please, for the love of God, hadn't he sent his girlfriend something?
The answers to those questions were easily inferred from his facial expression.
"Give me your credit card," she'd muttered, and he hadn't even thought to deny her. She swept out of the room, and in no time returned with the news that she had ordered Mandy a dozen red roses, with his name on the card - pointedly clarifying that this was not because he deserved the credit, but because no woman deserved to be forgotten by her boyfriend on Valentine's Day.
"You don't even know Mandy," he'd pointed out, returning the card to his wallet.
"No," Donna acknowledged, "but I don't have to know her to know she deserves better than you."
She was joking, of course, but it stung.
Now, as they wind down in the local bar with a few drinks, she's digging into the horrifying revelation he'd just offered her - that he's not simply incompetent at love, he's deeply apathetic about it.
"I don't see why you care so much," he tells her.
"I don't care that much!" She says defensively, disproving her own point. "I just... get so sick of all the derision toward love. It's the thing now - maybe it always has been - to be so cynical. To bash Valentine's Day, and hate rom-coms, and cringe at swoony love songs. Everything has to be so goddamn ironic all the time. Don't you get tired of it? This disdain we all seem to have toward being earnest?"
This is one of the first times - though certainly not the last - that he's seen Donna get worked up over something so seemingly trivial. (He'll later learn, of course, that if Donna's getting worked up over something, it's far from trivial. But now, he just gazes at her with vague amusement.) "Do you always talk like you're in a freshman English seminar?"
She ignores him. "You scoffed at me when you found out I'd dropped out of college to support my boyfriend. Don't pretend you didn't! As if it's the stupidest thing in the world to give up something for the person you love."
There's something about Donna Moss that's off-putting to him, but he can't quite figure it out. He's been trying for days now. She's beautiful, sure - almost ethereally so, he decides as she glares at him - soft lit by the bar's multi-colored beer signs - but that's not even the half of it. Everyone has noticed that. Everyone has been charmed by her, delighted by her, taken aback by her. But he's been something else, too.
He would call it oil and water, the constant friction of their personalities, but that would discount the many ways they're undeniably a good match. (Professionally, of course - they work well together.) Maybe if he'd paid more attention in chemistry he'd be able to find a suitable chemical reaction to use as a metaphor for whatever the hell is brewing between them.
"Okay," he says slowly, taking another sip of his beer. "But that was stupid, right? You agree with me on that?"
She shakes her head adamantly. "Maybe it ended up being the wrong choice for me in the end, but that doesn't make it a bad choice."
"I don't think I understand."
"Of course you don't," she says with clear exasperation. "You think love 'isn't that important.'"
He raises his hands defensively. "Not that important to me! It's not, like, my sole motivating factor, as it seems to be for some people."
"There it is! The derision!"
"It's not derision!"
"Because your sole motivating factor is work, right?"
"Okay, now who's being derisive? I put people in office, for the record, people who have huge impacts on policy, and people's lives, and-"
"And that's more important than love."
He wonders how she could possibly be having this argument with her boss and not feel the least bit embarrassed. But then, she is the same woman who quipped that her broken heart wouldn't "interfere with her typing" within ten minutes of meeting him.
"Do you hear yourself?"
"Do you hear yourself?" She bats back, and she's getting so far under his skin that he feels like he needs a ten-day shower. "The things you talk about in this industry... Bettering people's lives, making things easier for families. Fostering decency, and peace, and prosperity, respect... Leaving a better world to our children than we had for ourselves. Does that not sound like an industry built on love?"
He gapes at her in utter disbelief. "Well that's... You could say that about anything!"
She smirks triumphantly, leaning back against the booth. She tips her beer back and finishes it in one swig. "Yes. Yes, you could."
He makes a noise of indignation. "Oh, c'mon, now you're-"
"Love is what you're talking about. It's what we're all talking about, all of the time. Some of us just a little more... abstractly."
"How many drinks have you had?"
"One." She smiles that maddening smile, starting to scoot out of the booth. "Do you think the karaoke machine over there works? Because I've got a little Valentine's Day present for you."
He watches in astonishment as she grabs his beer bottle and drinks from it without asking. "Did you say all of that just now because you actually believe it, or just to argue with me?"
"Can't both be true?" She sets his bottle back down with a thunk.
His eyes track her to the back of the bar, where she starts fiddling determinedly with the karaoke machine. He knows then what bothers him so profoundly about Donna: she's human.
Day 1,478
He tells Amy over lunch that he loves her, and she doesn't even look up from her salad.
"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with whoever left the smell of cheap perfume and a handful of glitter in your passenger seat, would it?" She asks as levelly as if she's asking him to pass the salt.
But he knows her pretty well by now. "That's... I can explain that, that's just-"
"You don't need to explain," she continues, as calmly as before. "It's not like we ever said we were exclusive, did we?"
"No," he agrees, but he knows it's not that simple. They never said they weren't exclusive, either. "No, we didn't, but... I'd like to be. Exclusive, that is."
At this, she actually sets down her fork and gives him a careful once over. "Okay. You could've just said that, then."
He thinks about Mandy Hampton in that hotel ballroom, years ago, and wonders when he started using I love you as an apology.
Day 45
The first thing that Josh thinks when his former assistant turns up in his office - with a bandage on her ankle and contrition around her neck - is that maybe he's glad she doesn't love him after all.
He doesn't know then whether her boyfriend dumped her or she dumped him - whether she hurt her ankle during a late thaw, as she says, or spent an evening alone in a hospital.
But he does know that Donna loves too hard.
She loves until she is bruised, and broken, and miles from home.
"Love is what you're talking about. It's what we're all talking about, all of the time. Some of us just a little more... abstractly."
She will throw herself onto the fire for love. She will burn herself up into nothing.
He never wants her to do that on his account. He doesn't want her to do it on anyone's account, if he can help it.
It won't be until much later - until he is coming apart at the seams, and he can feel her two steps behind him, living and dying with his every panicked breath - until she is holding his right hand in the emergency room as they stitch closed the jagged cuts on the other - until he is not stopping for beers and she is not stopping for red lights - that he will realize he has failed.
And that the worst thing he's ever done to Donna Moss is take her back.
Day 1,477
He wakes up to the smell of fresh coffee and a timid hand on his shoulder. She proffers the warm mug with her eyes fixed determinedly on the carpet. "Peace offering?"
He doesn't say anything, taking his time sitting up and getting his bearings. "You're up early," he says, by which he means, I didn't think we were fighting.
"I didn't sleep much," she says, by which she undoubtedly means, Well, we were.
"This is one for the books, huh? I'm waking up on your couch, but you're the one hungover."
She's still not quite meeting his gaze. "And I'm bringing you coffee."
"Is this the part where the guy says 'Welcome to the Twilight Zone'?"
He succeeds in getting a small smile out of her. "Do you want the coffee or not?"
"I do."
"Wait." She holds it just out of reach. "If you accept this, we're just going to chalk last night up to... drunken mistakes, okay? And we'll never bring it up again. Deal?"
He hesitates. He can see the desperation she's barely keeping below the surface. She's showered and changed since he last saw her, but somehow looks even worse for wear - as if she'd spent the entire night waiting to ask him this exact question. "Deal," he agrees softly.
She passes him the coffee like it's a weight lifted. "Great. Perfect."
She's up and moving in an instant, padding back into the kitchen. Maybe to get herself a cup of coffee, or maybe to hide from him.
"Donna," he calls before he can think better of it.
"Mm?" She pauses in the doorway, her face reddening by the instant.
"I'll drop it, I promise, it's just..." It's just that I love you, and it's awful, and I don't know how we're going to survive this. "It's just, you can always call me, okay? Last night wasn't... You can always call me, no matter what. You know that, right?"
Exactly half of her body silhouetted by the kitchen light, she stands there for more heartbeats than he thought himself capable of. He wonders again how she can make a smile into such a tragic gesture. "Yeah. I know."
He knows in that moment that he'll never get another drunk call from her again.
Day 352
They're at the third inaugural ball of the evening, and the champagne from an innumerable amount of toasts is starting to go to Josh's head. He's not drunk yet, but is solidly tipsy - which means he wants to kiss Donna.
He doesn't read too much into this. Everyone has their thing. Sam gets nostalgic when he's drunk. Toby will crack a smile after a few scotches. Four drinks is when CJ usually takes the floor to perform the Jackal, and one too many glasses of brandy will have the President (President-elect no more!) singing show tunes.
So Josh wants to kiss his assistant when he's tipsy - what's the big deal?
He won't kiss her tonight, of course.
He will kiss her eventually - he knows it like he knows the sun will rise tomorrow. (There are three things in life that are certain - death, taxes, and the gravity between them.)
He'll kiss her one day, he knows, and it will wreak untold havoc on his life. His life, and hers, with casualties aplenty - the course of world history, the atmosphere, the ozone, and the ground underfoot, to name a few.
But he's not letting that happen tonight. Because they worked all damn year to get a good man sworn into office, and it's finally happened, and they're going to spend the next four years - eight, knock on wood - working even harder to make sure it was worth it.
One dance can't hurt, though. Or two.
"They're playing our song," he grins as the orchestra launches into Everybody Loves Somebody.
She gives him a confused smile, even as she sways in time to the familiar lyrics - her soft hands clasped at the nape of his neck. "This isn't our song."
"What, you don't remember?" He persists. "In that bar, with the karaoke? I'd hardly known you a week, and you launched into this whole thing about Valentine's Day, and-"
"I remember," she grants. "It's just... Well, I don't know. It's my song, is the thing. My dad used to sing it to my mom on their anniversary. It's... I have a lot of memories attached to it. Not just one. But I've had a lot of people think, just because I happen to like the song, and play it..."
"I get it," he says shortly. There's still teasing in his tone, but it's strained. "All the guys think this is their song with you."
If I had it in my power... I'd arrange for every girl to have your charm...
And he would, if he could. He'd make it so that anyone else could hold even half the space she has in his heart.
"That's not what I meant," she tells him with an eye roll. "Though I suppose, you know, many men have seemed to interpret-"
"It's alright." His warm inebriation of earlier has vanished. "It's your song, not ours. Understood. No interpretation needed."
"Okay. Good." She pulls him in a little closer, perhaps by way of an apology. "Besides, when you make a song 'our song' with someone, you can never get it back. It's their song forever. You run the risk of ruining it."
He gazes out over her shoulder as if he's gazing out to sea.
"Yeah. I guess you do."
And it's karma, really, that in return for all the unreturned calls, the unsent flowers, and the cancelled dates that make up his romantic history, he's now found the one woman he can't ignore.
Their anniversary is next week, and he is positive he's the only one who cares.
Day 1,477
Josh has called Donna every time he's been drunk since 1998.
Unless she's the one he's drinking with. Even then, when she goes to the bathroom or makes a trip to the bar, his finger hovers habitually over the 1 on his speed dial - the ache already creeping into the corners of his chest.
Sometimes, after he calls, he turns up on her doorstep anyway - tumbling into her hallway like a dropped bag of apples.
(He is always afraid that he looks different in the morning. That everyone will be able to see that he is bruised, and going bad. That he is sickly sweet and falling apart at her slightest touch.)
He always calls her. But she only calls him once.
He fumbles to grab his phone off Amy's bedside table, hoping he hasn't woken her. "Josh Lyman."
"Hey," she greets over a stream of tangled voices. "It's me."
He swallows, recalling that Donna is at some bachelorette party tonight - a woman from Senator Bryant's office, he thinks. (He's long since ceased being amazed at her ability to make friends wherever she goes.) She was supposed to call him to let him know she got home safely. But it doesn't sound like she's home.
"Hey. Where are you?"
"I'm at, um, this bar Brandi's? It's on..." The noise dies down as she walks outside to give him her location.
"Do you need me to..."
"Please," she says softly. "Yes, please."
"I'll be there in ten. Go back inside until I get there, okay?"
"Okay," she agrees, and he's almost certain she's crying. "Okay."
She hangs up as he starts rooting around for his clothes.
"You're leaving?" Amy murmurs from under the duvet, and he winces.
"Yeah, I have to go, uh-"
"Work?"
He wonders if she can sense his hesitation as he drags his sweater over his head. "Yeah. Work thing."
"Mm," she exhales softly into the pillow. "Okay. You'll call me?"
"Yes. I'll call you... tomorrow." He clambers back onto the bed to give her a hasty kiss goodbye.
Donna's not crying by the time he picks her up. In fact, she's giggling. She staggers into his car in a cloud of hairspray and some kind of fruity liquor.
"Joshua!" She says fondly as she struggles to buckle her seatbelt. "You made good time!"
He gives her a wary look. She doesn't notice - she's busy unfastening her high heels. "Somebody's in better spirits," he notes as he pulls away from the curb.
"I had just a few more drinks," she slurs, holding up three fingers.
"In ten minutes?"
"Okay, a few more shots! You caught me."
He's never seen her like this.
He's seen her sing Dean Martin in front of coworkers she's only known for a week, and he's seen her clumsily choreograph a dance with CJ to Pat Benatar at 3am in Toby's living room, and he's seen her kick off her sensible heels and scale a tree in small town Massachusetts after they lost the primary, claiming she "always did this as a kid when something unfair happened."
But all of that just seemed like Donna. A looser Donna, maybe - but a Donna he knew and understood completely.
This Donna he's not so familiar with. The straps on her shimmery mini dress have fallen past her shoulders, and her cheeks are streaked with mascara. Her lipstick is a mess, and he wonders who she's been kissing - just a long line of shot glasses, or maybe a long line of strangers.
He's never seen her sloppy. Which he'll later realize is because she's never let him.
"Nice sash," he says, eyes flicking from the road. He cuts a hard left at an intersection and she flops dramatically against the door. "Very... glittery."
She fights to regain an upright position. "You like it?"
"Isn't it supposed to be the bride wearing one of those?"
She makes a soft scoffing noise - as if he's just said something incredibly inept. "She wears a white sash. The rest of us wear pink."
"Right. Okay, makes sense."
"You're humoring me." She says affectionately. She tilts into him to rest her head on his shoulder. "And you smell like perfume."
He tenses. "You smell like perfume," he deflects, and wishes he'd had the forethought to turn on the radio.
She continues as if she hadn't heard him, mumbling into his jacket. "I like Amy's perfume. Very citrusy. Which isn't something I'd normally go for, but on some people, it's quite..."
"Donna, can we please not-"
"Did you know that I used to work at the perfume counter in Macy's? When I was in high school?"
He exhales slowly, hoping that they're returning to safe ground. "Is there a job you haven't had?"
She giggles again, and he swears Donna has never found him - or anyone - this funny in her life. "I only worked there for one holiday season, and it was a disaster. It's a miracle they didn't fire me before I quit."
"You're sure they didn't fire you? You've been known to claim imperviousness."
"I learned there's all these different components to perfume that you use to describe the scent. It's like wine, you know? The legs, the body... Which was definitely thought up by a man, if you ask me."
"Perfume has... legs?"
"No, wine does. But perfume doesn't. Perfumes have three structural parts - the head, the middle, and the base notes. I think a woman probably came up with that. The head... that's much nicer."
"You've lost me now." Her hair is tickling his neck.
"I always do."
"Even moreso than usual this time."
She grabs his hand from where it rests on the gear shift and turns it over in her own palm. Gently, she starts tracing the scars there. "But you want to know something? I could never get it right. I could never identify the head, the middle... the right or left of it, I mean. It made me dizzy, just trying. And it didn't help that I layered every tester in the store on my wrists, on my neck. God, I can still smell it! My mom made me wash off in the garage before she let me back inside the house."
"Is there a point to this story?"
She ceases her palm reading motions and threads her clammy fingers through his. There's nothing about this that isn't wrong - not least of which is the fact that he doesn't stop her.
"Is there a point to anything?" She asks listlessly.
"That's rhetorical, I hope."
"I wanted to be grown up so badly, is the point, Josh. I wanted to be exactly where I am right now."
His breath hitches. She must mean being 27, and not being in his car, holding his hand. "Oh. And how does it stack up?"
She closes her eyes, breathing deeply, and it's not immediately clear whether she's going to answer him. "Amy smells like lemon. And jasmine, and bergamot, and... a little bit like pine."
"I think that might be the car air freshener."
"And I still smell like the Macy's counter." She slumps forward suddenly, retracting her hand. His shoulder is left cold and bereft. "So, that's how it stacks up. There's a spot up ahead, put your blinker on."
Day 52
Josh's parents actually had a great marriage.
He's had a few people assume over the years, due to his general lack of interest in commitment and domesticity, that he didn't have the best model for love growing up. But that's just it - he did.
His father brought his mother coffee in bed every morning for fifty years. His mother laid out his father's tie with care each evening. They waltzed in the living room, kissed in the kitchen, and went out for dinner and a movie every two weeks like clockwork.
Even their daughter's death - which could have easily driven them apart - brought them closer together than ever before. It was like they were fused at their very core.
And as Josh watches his mother waver with dehydration on their third day of sitting shiva, because she's been weeping relentlessly - as he practically carries her upstairs to bed - his mother, who once hiked through Shenandoah National Park with him strapped to her back - as she pushes his hair back and tells him how much he looks like his father - as he creeps out of the darkened room with his heart in his mouth - he thinks about his conversation with Donna in the bar, just a few months ago.
Like he said, it's really not about whether he believes in love. He knows love exists - he's seen it. He's felt it. It just doesn't save anyone.
Day 1,477
Apparently all it takes to restore Donna's good spirits is the flight of stairs up to her apartment. By the time she turns the key and staggers inside - flinging her heels down with gusto - she's humming and twirling like she's having the night of her life.
Josh follows her cautiously down the hall, as though any sudden movement might spook her. He blinks in surprise as she turns the living room light on and tosses her purse onto the couch.
"Is Stella home?"
She waves a hand. "At her parents' for the weekend."
"Ah." He shifts uncomfortably. He almost wishes she were here - pesky cats and all - because it would give him an excuse to leave.
After struggling melodramatically with her zipper for minute, Donna turns to him with a doe-eyed pout. "Can you?"
He's well aware that she uses this expression specifically to manipulate him, but this knowledge somehow doesn't undermine the effect. "How'd you get it up in the first place?" He asks, even as he steps closer and gently moves her hair aside.
"I was sober."
"Right." He holds his breath as his hand slowly trails the length of her spine. She's still humming.
It's over in an instant. She walks into her bedroom without so much as a thank you, and he's left remembering the constellation of freckles between her shoulder blades.
"Are you in love with Amy?" She calls through the open door, which is enough to make his brain short circuit. She'd left the door open. Is it an invitation?
"What?" He calls back in a strangled voice. He hears her dress - heavy with sequins - hit the ground.
"Are you in love with Amy?" She repeats gaily, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that there's nothing careless about this.
"Donna..."
"Do you love her?" She rephrases, as if it's the preposition that's the problem. Before he can answer, she reemerges wearing an oversized t-shirt and a massive smile. "Do you love her, Josh?" She taunts.
He shakes his head, but it's incredulity - not an answer. "Why are you asking me this?"
She brushes past him and stops in the center of the living room, studying her mantle as if seeing it for the first time. "It's a simple question."
"It's not. Not when you're asking it."
By the second, her smile is becoming more pained. "You do love her. I can tell. I'm so happy for you Josh, she's really such a great-"
"Why did you call me?" He interrupts, unable to stand it.
Donna falters - the unhinged smile mercifully dropping by a fraction. "I... I needed a ride."
He turns away from her. "Okay. Okay, sure."
"I did!"
"Fine, except... you never call me."
This time he doesn't think she's feigning her confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." He paces to the window and looks out over her street, hands squared on his hips. "I mean you never call me when you're drunk and you need a ride. I don't know who you call, I don't know if it's CJ, or Sam, or Stella, but it's not me. Until tonight."
"I...I'm sorry." He casts a furtive glance over his shoulder to find that she's taken this entirely wrong. Her eyes are filling rapidly with tears. "I won't call you again, God, I just thought-"
"That's not what I'm saying," he pleads, and really, Donna crying should be some kind of torture tactic. "I want you to call me. I tell you to call me. But you never do."
She raises one hand and rubs at her eye with a balled fist, like a little kid. "What are you saying?"
"I always call you," he implores, as if that clarifies anything. He's not exactly sure what he's trying to ask her - maybe it's Why don't you feel it too? The gravity? Does she not also fear waking up one day in some random intersection in the city - equidistant between their beds - because their bodies have finally and irrevocably been pulled together by this strange, undeniable force?
"Is it some sort of competition?" She spits irritably, but the venom is somewhat undermined by the mascara she's just smudged all the way into her eyebrow.
"No, it's..." He sighs. "Why did you call me tonight, Donna?"
She bites her bottom lip and hugs one arm to her with the other. He can hardly read her these days, but he thinks she might be about to tell him the truth. "Everybody was calling their somebody."
For a moment, the syntax of this sentence confuses him so badly he forgets that he's angry. "Everybody...what?"
She sighs forcefully - as if he's asking something terribly unjust of her. "The bride, Stacy, she was all emotional drunk, right? And she kept waxing poetic about her fiance, and next thing we know, she's in the bathroom calling him, telling him how much she loves him, blah blah blah."
"...Okay?"
"And then the Maid of Honor is all 'how sweet is this?' and calling up her own husband. And it just set off this whole chain reaction. Girls were calling their boyfriends, their exes..."
"I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with me," he says, even though he's starting to have an inkling. But he wants to hear her say it.
"Everyone was calling somebody, and... I called you. That's all." She says, as if it's that simple - an equation to which he is the objective answer.
"Why me?"
"Because you're number one on my speed dial?"
"It was a matter of convenience?"
"Maybe it was."
"Donna."
"Josh. Please."
"Why did you call me?" He presses, unrelenting.
"I called you because... Because I called you, okay?" She bursts irritably. "I just did! We don't have to make this-"
"I thought you might've called me because you knew I was with Amy," he interrupts, the words tumbling out before he can fully consider their implications.
She doesn't balk at the accusation like he expects her to. "I... don't know. Maybe I did."
"I really don't understand you sometimes. It's like... it's like you don't want me to be happy."
She stands stock still, and he watches every trace of inebriation leave her body. When she speaks again, her voice is deadly quiet. "It's like that?"
He's hurt her, and he hates hurting her. But he's somehow gotten very good at it.
He rakes his hand through the back of his hair with so much frustration that it's a wonder he doesn't draw blood. "No, of course it's not... God, I shouldn't have come here."
"Maybe you're right."
"I mean, you don't get to..." He trails off. You don't get to... what? He tries again. "You're the one who..."
Words fail him once more. It's sitting right there, all he has to do is wrap his head around it. You're the one who fucked Cliff, is what he wants to say, but that in itself is an admission. You're the one who broke this thing to begin with, he wants to say - as if they owed each other anything.
He certainly thought they did. He thought there was some kind of understanding - dating around, meaningless flings, it was all fine. It was all just killing time. Until it wasn't.
He hardly dares think it, but if she hadn't slept with Cliff, he wonders if he ever would've pursued Amy. If he even would've wanted a relationship with her if he didn't have something to prove. But that's not fair to Amy, and it's not fair to him. Hell, it's probably unfair to Donna, to Cliff - but if there's one thing he's learned about this thing between him and his assistant, it's that it's really fucking unfair.
"I'm the one who what?" She prompts.
You're the one who left me. You're the one who leaves. That's what it always comes down to, isn't it?
"Nothing. It's... Forget it." He turns to gaze back out the window, wondering if any of the other lit windows on the street are bearing witness to scenes so miserable. He notices a flicker of motion in the reflection. "Where are you going?"
"To bed," Donna informs him quietly. She flips off the lights. "I'm tired."
He feels a sudden flash of grief - as if he wants this conversation, painful and stilted as it is, to go on forever. To go on until one of them says something they can't take back in the morning.
But he doesn't press her. Instead, he asks, "Do you want me to stay?"
"You don't have to," she says flatly.
He thinks about Amy, on the other side of town, warm and asleep and completely right for him. "I'll stay."
He's rewarded for this terrible decision by Donna giving him a small smile. Which, of course, could make up for anything.
"Josh?" She calls from the doorway to her bedroom, and he knows this time that she's not inviting him anywhere.
"Yeah?" He answers from the couch.
"For what it's worth..." She starts shakily, and he squints through the darkness for her. "The reason why I never call you? Why when I'm drunk, I call CJ, or I call a cab, and I don't call you - even though you always call me? For what it's worth, the reason is that I'm afraid of what I'll say to you."
He stares at the spot where he thinks she is. "You... You didn't even say anything, tonight."
"Yeah. I think I'm afraid of that, too."
Day 2,844
"Maybe you're not remembering everything as it was," CJ tells him softly - breaking the news as though to a small child who's time has come to learn the truth about Santa Claus. "Maybe you're just remembering the good parts."
He stares ahead listlessly, wishing he'd walked home. "That's the thing, CJ. It was all good parts. All of it."
Day 4
"I can't go in there like this!"
"You look fine, Josh, and no one will care except you."
"I'm taking it off."
"You can't take it off!"
"Well I can't leave it on!"
Donna, his assistant of only a handful of days, fixes him with a glare rival to his mother's. "You have an open wound, Joshua. I'd think that would be a bit more distracting to the nice gentlemen in the conference room than a silly little band-aid."
He frowns. That might be the first time she's called him Joshua. "It is silly. That's exactly my point, Donna, thank you."
Josh, being sleep deprived and distracted by a phone call with Leo, had hit his head getting out of the car that morning. The only band-aids Donna was able to hunt down in the office were superhero themed. Very brightly colored superhero themed band-aids.
They've at least managed to stop the bleeding.
"They're just people, Josh, and if they can't focus on what you're saying because of a band-aid-"
"They're Congressmen, Donna, Congressmen we sorely need endorsements from. This is serious! As a matter of fact, this is a place for serious business. So why, for the love of all that is holy, we don't seem to have regular fucking first aid supplies on hand, instead of elementary school-"
"Oh for God's sake," she mutters irritably, and grabs him roughly by the wrist. She drags him down the hall, and not once does it occur to him to resist. She throws open the door to the conference room and pulls him inside like he's a poorly behaved Kindergartener. "Good morning, gentlemen, I hope you're all doing well. I'm Josh's assistant, and I just wanted to stop in before the meeting to ask - is anyone going to be distracted by the fact that Josh has a Spiderman band-aid on his forehead? Or can we all be grownups about this? We can? Okay, wonderful."
The four Congressmen seated at the conference table stare up at her in shock - one with his coffee cup poised halfway to his mouth. Congressman Eichman is the first to crack a grin.
"I... think that's actually Batman?"
Donna smiles brightly, and the absurdity of the whole thing somehow manages to temper Josh's mortification. "That which it is, Congressman, good eye! I'll leave you to it."
She marches back out, snapping the door shut behind her. Josh sinks into his chair with a self-deprecating expression as the room finally dissolves into laughter. "Remind me to fire her after this," he mutters.
"Fire her? Are you kidding? She's perfect for you!" Congressman Brenner chortles.
"The cure to your neurosis," Eichman adds fondly.
In an hour's time, when he's lecturing Donna about her little stunt and only half-meaning it - and she is clearly only half-listening - he'll think back to Eichman's words, and know he'll never be able to fire her. He'll hang onto her for as long as he can - for as long as she'll let him.
It won't be for another few months, of course, that he'll wonder which is worse: the ailment or the cure.
Day 3,156
Josh has gotten very good at pretending not to watch Donna. Or maybe he hasn't, but no one has bothered to point out his leering to him yet because he's everyone's boss. Either way, when she limps into the high school lobby and trips on the entryway carpet, he's inevitably the first at her side - because he was watching.
Tripping, in the grand scheme of things, isn't usually that big of a deal. Josh himself has fallen down in the Capitol, in the White House halls, in his own office - he's "very clumsy," as Donna is quick to inform people - and he's bounced back up each time with only the pain of his embarrassment.
But because he was watching her walk in, (because he's always watching her walk anywhere), he's pretty sure the fall is not her biggest problem. It's a symptom of the problem - there's something wrong with her leg.
It's reflexive, he supposes, how he drops his backpack and barrels across the lobby, arriving on the carpet beside her just moments after she's landed there - not thinking anything of kneeling on the ground in his suit. It must be reflexive, at least, because later he won't remember doing any of it. He'll just remember the gut-wrenching pain on her face.
"Donna? Hey, are you..." The words die on his lips, because she's obviously not okay. She's managed to sit up, but she's clutching her knee to her chest and gritting her teeth against the onset of tears.
Otto, who was on the venue scouting trip with her earlier in the day and therefore walked in with her, is the next at her side. "Oh, God, are you okay?"
"I'm... It's..." She attempts.
As Otto continues to hover over her, a ripple of alarm goes through the staff. This is no ordinary fall seems to be implicitly communicated, and in no time, there's a small crowd around them. Even the Congressman and his wife push through the throng to gaze at her with concern. The attention, coupled with the pain, color her face bright red. Josh watches in real time as she swallows her tears, and he wants to tell everyone to Fuck off, can't you see you're making it worse?
But he can't seem to string two words together.
Somehow, his arm has landed around her shoulders, though he's not sure when. He can feel the exertion it takes for her to slow her breathing and relax her leg away from her.
She finally draws in enough air to say, "I've got an old knee injury, that's all." She punctuates this with a small smile, as if to say, See, it's nothing!
Her half-hearted dismissal jars him out of his silence. "Two years ago isn't that old, Donna. How long has it been bothering you?"
She seems surprised, and not pleasantly so, to find him at her side. "Not long," she says evasively.
"She's been limping all day," Otto provides.
"Why the hell are you telling him?" Donna yelps, betrayed. "He's not a doctor."
"Thanks, Otto," Josh says without taking his eyes off her. "Donna, how long has this been going on?"
Donna continues to direct her indignation to the assembled onlookers. "I mean, he gets queasy just hearing about anything medical."
"Donna."
She glares at him reproachfully. "A couple days. But it wasn't bad until today."
"You haven't been wearing your brace?"
He can see a flicker of vulnerability as she bites her lip. "I packed it in the wrong bag. It went with advance, it's in Atlanta right now."
Someone (Edie, he thinks) brings over one of the gymnasium's folding metal chairs. He and Otto help her into it, and she cautiously stretches her leg out - a hiss of pain escaping as she does so.
"And your meds?"
"I... I missed a refill. But I've been taking Advil," she defends weakly.
"Okay," he says decisively, and he has no idea where he's getting his authority in this situation. "Okay. I'm going to look at your knee now."
The glare is back. "You know, if you were looking for a reason to undress me, you could've just-"
"Would you quit being a wise ass?" He quips, hands bracketed around her calf.
"As opposed to being just an ass," she says scathingly, and it breaks his heart how much pain she's in. "Because, really, you've got the market cornered on that one."
"Donna," he says gently. He pulls his hands away from her and raises them, open, to shoulder height. "Donna, hey. Look at me."
(It will later occur to him that no one on the campaign has ever seen him display this much tenderness - that they didn't even think him capable. And this, much more than Donna's injury, is likely why they're standing around gawking like patrons in a zoo).
"What?" She snaps, but the edge is fading from her voice. She does as directed - raising her gaze skittishly to meet his - and it's potentially the most eye contact they've had in months. He tries to make the most of it, conveying everything he can't say.
"I'm not going to do anything unless you tell me it's okay."
She swallows, and just for a moment - a fraction of a moment - the wall is down. "Okay."
"Okay?" He confirms. It occurs to him for the first time that he's down on one knee in front of her, asking her a question.
"Okay. Yes."
"Okay." He nods vigorously, attempting to convey more confidence than he feels. He slowly - agonizingly slowly - pushes the leg of her slacks over her knee, trying to make as little contact as possible. "Alright, um, okay. Yeah."
"Could someone get him a bucket?" Donna says drily to no one in particular.
"I don't need a bucket," he defends, though he's surely pale. He hastily rolls her pant leg back down. "But could we get some, uh, ice over here?"
Donna brightens at this. "Great idea. I'll just ice it while the Congressman speaks, and then I'll be fine to join for the-"
"Oh no," he says firmly, sitting back on his heels. "Ice is just the first string. You're going to the hospital."
She gapes at him. "But - but - that's not an option."
"Yes, it is. And it's what you're doing."
"I have to brief after the event! And I have to be at the taping afterward, and prep questions, and..."
"Donna, your knee's the size of a fucking grapefruit," he informs her matter-of-factly. "You're going to the hospital."
"It can't be that bad."
"Did you hear the part about the grapefruit? You're going." Their rapport is feeling more familiar - not the barbed excuse for communication it's been the last few months.
"If I just ice it, and go easy the rest of the day, elevate it in the car..."
"Or, how about this," he interrupts, sarcasm dripping from his voice, "we'll get you something to bite down on and just amputate it right here and now? Would that be more convenient for you?"
"Would you quit yelling at me?"
"Who's yelling? I'm not yelling."
"You all took note of that, right? How I was sitting here, in pain, and he yelled at me?"
"Donna. You're going to the-"
"You're not my boss anymore!" She cries triumphantly, before realizing what she's said. Horror dawns in her eyes. "Wait..."
"That's right. Technically, I am your boss again. In fact, I was your direct boss before, but now I'm your boss about three times over. I'm your boss now more than ever before."
"Oh good God."
"So you're going to the hospital. You're going to the hospital, they're going to take an X-ray, they're probably going to giving you a steroid shot, they're going to give you some real medication, and then we're going to get you a temporary brace or something until we get to Atlanta. And all of that's an order."
"Can't we just get a twelve gauge and take me out now, like a race horse?"
She's enjoying this, he realizes. The fact that he's actually helping - even by being a target for her quips - makes a balloon of hope swell in his chest.
He grins. "Don't worry, you've got at least a couple more years before we put you out to pasture."
Bram hands him a plastic bag of ice, and he places it on her knee.
"A few good breeding years?"
If he thinks the staff doesn't know him very well, then they definitely don't know Donna, because this joke causes more than a few jaws to drop. But it doesn't phase him in the slightest. "Please never say the word breeding to me again."
"Can I say it about you?"
He bites back a laugh. "Could someone bring a car around, please? Either to take her to the hospital, or to run me over with?"
"There's this saying about two birds and a stone that comes to mind," Donna grins. She places her hand over top of his to adjust the ice pack, and leaves it there.
"Okay, who's taking her?" Ronna queries as Otto darts out to the parking lot to pull their rental car up to the front doors.
Josh is a little confused by the question. "I'm taking her."
"But, you've got a meeting with the auto union right after this," Ronna tells him hesitantly, looking down at the schedule in her hands. "And a three o'clock with the Southeast fundraising guys, and-"
He continues to stare at her blankly. "I'm taking her to the hospital," he repeats, not comprehending the dilemma.
"But-"
"Ronna," someone interrupts. Half a dozen heads swivel to look at Congressman Santos, whom they'd somehow managed to forget was standing there for the past few minutes. "He's taking her to the hospital."
Josh flashes him a grateful look before turning back to Donna. "Okay, car's here. C'mon, I'll carry you."
Donna balks. "You can't be serious."
"What? I may not be working out as much lately, but I'm pretty sure I can still lift your scrawny ass."
She rolls her eyes. "That's not how I meant it."
"I mean, if you'll remember the great Massachusetts oak tree incident of '98," he continues obliviously, "in which you literally made me catch you from ten feet up-"
"It was three feet. And I meant that no one is carrying me, because I'm walking."
"It was more like seven. And you can't walk."
"Sure I can."
"Remember the grapefruit?"
"There's a dozen reporters between here and the car!" She gestures pointedly to the front doors. "These are people I need respect from, respect I've worked hard for, and I can't have them seeing - and definitely can't have them photographing - me being carried to the car like some damsel in distress!"
"We could have the Congressman carry you out." Matt's eyes widen at this suggestion. "Turn it into a whole photo op. 'Presidential candidate Matt Santos saves injured staffer.' Nice ring to it, no?"
"Can you please be serious?"
"You're right, way too staged. I'll do it."
"I can walk!"
"Donna, you can't possibly think-"
"FDR walked short distances in public!"
"FDR..." Josh pinches the bridge of his nose. "What fresh hell is this?"
"He wanted to project an image of strength," Donna informs him curtly, in that didactic tone of hers that he pretends to hate. "So he had these full leg braces, and he would lean on the arm of an aid, or one of his sons, and walk to speaking engagements or meet and greets. Most of the public was none the wiser!"
"Yes," he says lightly, "and this situation is exactly like that."
She frowns. "You're mocking me."
"Yes."
"First he yelled, and now he mocks."
"Look, you can walk, if you let one of us help you. Deal?"
She sighs dramatically. "Deal."
He's intentionally left it open - that he doesn't have to be the one to help her to the car, if she doesn't want him to. But after she's collected her belongings and shifted to the edge of the chair, it's him she reaches for. "Josh?"
"Yeah." He's back at her side in an instant. "I've got you."
They make their way haltingly to the car, and she collapses readily into the passenger side. A handful of staffers come out out to wish her well, and a few reporters trail over to see what's going on and give their best. Helen Santos even brings Donna's abandoned shoes out, and sets them in the backseat with a kind smile.
The flurry of activity over, the car is heavy with silence as they pull away from the curb.
"I really liked how you compared yourself to FDR," Josh says as he turns out of the parking lot.
"I hate you."
"Really?"
Donna glowers out the passenger window. "No."
Day 1,811
"They're playing our song," Donna says gently in his ear, and he attempts to come back down to earth.
Despite how busy they've been tonight, they've found time to share at least five dances over the course of six balls. Josh is starting to feel it - the gravity. His chin has been dipping dangerously toward her shoulder, and his hands have migrated from their more sedate positions - on her back and in her hand - to encircle her waist. It's imaginably a little hard for him to think straight.
He frowns with intense focus, listening to the swell of the first chorus. "I thought you said this wasn't our song."
She chuckles. He feels her fiddle with the collar of his shirt. "I remember that. But the thing is, ever since that conversation... You're the only person I can think of when I hear it."
Maybe this is just her version of an apology. Maybe she feels bad for him. Or maybe she's telling the truth, and he never understood her to begin with.
"I've ruined it for you?" He asks.
"No. You haven't."
Not for the first time, a very small part of him wishes that they hadn't won reelection.
Day 3,156
"You know that offer to carry me?" Donna asks weakly, slumping into the elevator wall.
"Yeah?"
"Is it still on the table?"
"It can be."
They've made it back to the hotel after an exhausting eight hours at the ER, most of which was spent in the waiting room. It was reminiscent of that horrible Christmas Eve, but not in a bad way - that holiday they spent together is clouded with warm nostalgia by now. Today, just as she did then, she gripped his hand with fervor - the pain moving between their two bodies as though their palms were conduits.
(If he could've take any of it from her - for her - he would've. Just as he knows she would've then, for him.)
The long day, and the medication they'd given her, have taken their toll. She walked through the lobby on her own with minimal support, but he can tell she's fading fast.
As if she might retract the request at any moment, he fumbles to pick her up before they reach her floor. He hastily returns her shoes, which he's been carrying. After a brief mental debate over what to do with their room keys, he puts them in his mouth to free his hands.
She chuckles softly as she wraps her arms around his neck and allows him to lift her up. Her shoes thump against his back. "This is all I had to do to shut you up?"
"Mm," he says.
"Because I would've done this years ago."
"Mm." He's afraid his legs are going to give out any second - not because she's heavy, but because he hasn't touched this much of her in years.
"Thanks for carrying me."
"Mm-hm."
And he wants to tell her that when you love someone, you're supposed to let them go, so he's let her walk away twice. Yet by some miracle, she's come back both times, and he would very much like to hold onto her now, forever.
But he's got key cards in his mouth.
They reach her door too soon. She gently pulls the cards from his lips, making another small hum of amusement as she does so. The words are already gone - he must've swallowed them.
When he finally makes it downstairs to the office suite - Donna settled safely in bed, and an alarm set on his phone to check on her in an hour's time - Helen Santos is upon him in a matter of seconds.
"How is she?"
"She's going to be fine."
"Good, good. I'm glad to hear it." She hesitates at his side, and he can tell there's something else she wants to say. (There usually is.) She takes her time spitting it out. "You... know each other better than I originally thought. You and Donna, I mean."
As if she could be referring to anyone else. "We worked together for a long time," he deflects.
"I see," Helen says shortly, and it's clear she doesn't buy his nonchalance for a second. "How long?"
He wonders for a moment how best to answer her.
He could tell her that he's known Donna his whole life, because he wasn't really living until the day he met her. He could tell her that he sorts the years of his life into pre-Donnatella and post, not unlike how the birth of Christ bisects the Western calendar. (He could tell her that if he believed in the first coming, he'd call Donna the second, but the whole damn thing would be reductive anyway.) He could tell her that time is infinite, and life is short, and it's an act of great cruelty and divinity that he even gets to exist on the same plane as Donna Moss to begin with.
He could tell her that it's been 3,156 days.
"Too long."