Archive of Our Own

If there’s someplace you’d rather be, everyone would understand.

Leo gives Josh’s thoughts a voice, granting him permission to do what he’s wanted to do since the moment he saw the footage of what happened in Gaza. Josh heads toward his office to gather the essentials, even though he has absolutely no idea what the next step is, other than ‘get to the airport’.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to figure it out himself. Margaret appears outside his office door sometime between the time he enters and the time he tries to leave – he has no idea when, as Margaret can be freakishly stealthy when she wants to be. She grabs him by the wrist and leads him toward the White House lobby, as though he’s a wandering child she expects to stray. “All of your flight information is here,” Margaret says, handing him an envelope. “There’s a car waiting outside, and it’s going to take you home so you can pack.”

“I don’t need to pack,” Josh protests, lifting the flap of the envelope and peeking inside at the itinerary. It’s written in Margaret’s precise, neat handwriting instead of Donna’s messy, loopy penmanship, and his stomach churns with anxiety. He swallows hard, then continues. “I have to be at the airport in an hour.” He has no idea how Margaret managed to book a flight that quickly, let alone one that leaves so soon, but he chooses not to question it.

Before he can further argue the point with Margaret, she’s shoving him into the car, and the driver pulls away. Josh attempts to change the destination to the airport, but the driver coolly responds that he has strict orders from Leo to bring Josh home prior to taking him to the airport. Josh can’t help but feel like this is wasting time, time he doesn’t have. Donna’s halfway around the world, alone and in pain, and he can’t do anything to fix it.

He’s had sessions with the best trauma therapists in the world, learned grounding techniques from pioneers in the field, but nothing will ease Josh’s anxiety except seeing Donna.

But he can’t do that now. So he tries the only other thing he can think of that will bring him any relief: remembering his favorite moments with Donna, replaying them in his head like a movie. The time when she spilled orange juice on herself on the bus, and she was so sleepy she whined that she smelled like Florida. The time when she had Sam convinced for a day and a half that she was psychic. The time they went ice skating and Donna tried to teach Toby how to spiral, despite his protests.

He remembers that moment in his office a few years ago, when he’d compared himself to Donna’s good-for-nothing ex-boyfriend, when he’d quipped that if Donna were in an accident, he wouldn’t stop to get a beer. But Donna, of course, found a way to put everything he’s ever felt for her into words.

If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights.

There’s subtext there; there probably always was, but he’d been terrified to explore that, to identify how it made him feel, what it meant for the two of them and their professional and personal futures. He’d known he was in love with her for a while now, since she asked him to talk her up to Commander Wonderful. But there were always reasons to push it aside, whether those reasons were personal or work-related. Of course, he wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt the same way, so they maintained the status quo as they always did. Now, it’s like the true meaning of her words reveals itself to him, clear as day:

If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

If you need me, I will be there, no matter what.

I love you.

And so, when the car pulls up in front of his apartment, he grabs only one thing: his grandmother’s engagement ring.

It’s been in a box in the closet since day one hundred and fifty-one of the first Bartlet administration, when his mother stopped by for lunch and a visit with Leo. She’d handed it to him, insisted that he keep it somewhere safe, that he’d be needing it soon. He’d done as she asked, mostly because he knows better than to argue with his mother about things like that, but he was certain she was trying to meddle.

But now, he places it in the inner zipper pocket of his backpack, the one Donna always insists he should put his passport in so he doesn’t lose it. Then, he opens said pocket to ensure that his passport is there (it is) before heading back down the stairs and outside to the waiting car.

Josh arrives at the hospital and is directed toward Donna’s floor. There he meets Colonel Leahy, who did Donna’s surgery, and the Colonel updates Josh on Donna’s condition. Donna suffered a compound fracture to the femur and a collapsed lung. Given the footage he’d seen on the news, it’s shocking that she’s alive in the first place, but the Colonel says outright that he’s more worried about Josh than he is about Donna. Josh’s head is spinning, although he’s not sure if that’s from his concern for Donna, the exhaustion, the description of her injuries, the relief that she’s going to be okay – or something else entirely.

Colonel Leahy offers to let Josh see Donna, an offer which Josh gratefully accepts. Josh spends the short walk down the hallway attempting to prepare himself to see her. If the medical professional he just spoke to isn’t very worried about her, then Josh shouldn’t be, either. She’s going to be fine, they’re going to be fine, and she might look a little banged up, but she’s safe now.

Despite his best efforts to steel himself, his stomach lurches when he walks into her hospital room. Colonel Leahy must notice Josh’s reaction, because he glances at Donna, then back at Josh with a look in his eyes Josh has come to recognize as pity. Then the Colonel leaves, shutting the door behind him, and for the first time, Josh is alone with Donna. His heart skips a beat when he realizes that there was a nonzero chance that she could have come to in a hospital room in Germany, by herself, with no one there to comfort her. Or maybe she had already, and he just didn’t know it yet.

Josh approaches the bed, trying to tamp down the spike in anxiety he feels as he moves closer to her. The first thing he notices is her leg, propped up and bandaged, in traction. Then, his eyes drift upward. She has scrapes, cuts, and bruises all over her face, and the doctors have her using a nasal cannula to give her some oxygen. She doesn’t look like herself. But she’s alive.

He looks around the room and finds an empty chair close to Donna’s hospital bed, taking a seat. He doesn’t bother taking off his suit jacket, or his tie. He doesn’t turn on the television, doesn’t boot up his laptop. Instead, he keeps his eyes on her, watching the rise and fall of her chest, as though this alone can keep her safe.

And eventually, to Josh’s relief, Donna wakes.

When she does, she’s entirely focused on him. What happened to you? You need to shave.

She doesn’t even know where she is, isn’t entirely coherent, and yet she’s still giving him shit.

It’s not mean-spirited; Donna’s incapable of that, even when she’s barely conscious or in pain. The familiar anger at the situation bubbles up inside of him again: how could anyone do this to Donna? Donna is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but in these moments he feels protective of her. He briefly reaches back into his memory for other times he’s felt like this: when he was given the NSC card that he eventually returned, when Donna got the threatening letter in the mail right before Zoey was kidnapped.

When Donna told him that her ex-boyfriend stopped for a beer on the way to the hospital.

How could anyone, anywhere, feel anything but love for Donna? Donnatella Moss is kind, thoughtful, brilliant, witty. She’s a million other things that, even if he sat here forever, he could never find the words to describe – because she’s everything to him. She always has been. And given the fact that he has a ring in his backpack, she always will be, if he has anything to say about it.

The nurse draws some blood and Josh tries to stand by her side – he really does – but the combination of his weak stomach and seeing Donna in pain makes him unable to stay. He’s really going to have to get better about that, given how much Donna dealt with when she took care of him. He starts to make a mental list of all the things he remembers her doing during his own recovery. It’s not a long list, but it’s a start, and he’ll figure it out in time.

He returns to the hospital room after he sees the nurse exit with a vial of blood. By the time he returns, Donna’s eyes have closed again, the morphine clicker draped between her fingers. She must hear him come back, because she fights to open her eyes, seemingly startled, then visibly relaxes when he returns to his spot beside her bed.

“Josh,” she says, trying to shift in order to get comfortable.

She winces, and Josh reaches out to help steady her, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder and the other intertwining with hers. “Careful,” Josh warns. “Here, let me.”

“My leg,” Donna murmurs.

Josh moves his hand from her shoulder to her hair, gently brushing some of it out of her face. “Did they – did they tell you what happened?”

“Huh-uh,” Donna says, barely shaking her head. “I guess my leg…” she sighs, as though she’s forgotten she was speaking in the first place, and settles back against the pillows.

“Yeah, you – your leg was in rough shape. They had to put a metal rod in there… somewhere, you know, to… put everything back where it should be,” Josh says, wincing as he recalls the Colonel’s earlier description of her injuries.

“In my leg? How am I… how will I get through the metal detector to go home?” Donna asks, sounding even more exhausted than she did a few moments prior, which Josh didn’t think was possible. Suddenly her eyes open in a panic. “I don’t know German. I can’t stay here!”

Something tugs at his heartstrings when she says this. She’s slurring her words a little bit, slightly reminiscent of the handful of times he’s ever seen her drunk. But instead of the swell of affection that grows in his chest when he watches Tipsy Donna, it’s an ache – one that settles in for the long haul, knowing that Donna’s hurting, and likely will be for some time. “I’m gonna make sure you get home,” Josh says. “Don’t worry.”

She tries to focus on him, blinking a few times before she exhales with some effort. “I hate sauerkraut,” she mumbles.

“The second you’re able, we’ll get you back to the land of hot dogs, apple pie, and the worst possible pizza toppings,” Josh promises, trying to add some levity to the situation to ease her mind. She nods, and her eyes close as the morphine finally kicks in.

It hurts worse than he imagined, seeing her like this. He knows what it’s like on the other side, is intimately aware of some of the challenges of recovering from a critical injury. Josh hates that they have this in common, hates that they’ve almost lost each other not once, but twice now. It seems like more than two people who mean this much to each other should have to bear.

When he’s certain she’s drifted off to sleep, he presses a gentle kiss to the back of her hand, then holds it between his own.

The wait for Donna to wake up again is agonizing.

He checks his watch what must be a dozen times in just an hour, throwing his head back in frustration at the painfully slow pace at which time is passing. With each passing hour, Josh is closer to losing his mind. When the nurse enters to check on Donna, Josh bombards her with questions. The nurse assures him that it’s not concerning that Donna’s still asleep, reminds him that she’s had some major surgery and been through quite an ordeal.

Josh is pacing the room yet again when the door swings open. A breathless Sam Seaborn enters, which makes Josh stop in his tracks. Is he that tired that he’s hallucinating? He blinks, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees stars, then blinks some more. Sam, or the hallucination, is still there, so he risks looking stupid in front of whoever may be in earshot. “Sam?”

“How is she?” Sam asks, dropping his duffel bag by the chair Josh has been camping out in since he arrived. So he’s not a hallucination, not a figment of his imagination.

“She’s… she’s gonna be fine. A collapsed lung and a broken femur,” Josh says, slightly hesitant. “She was awake for a little while a few hours ago, but… the pain meds kinda knock her out.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I saw what happened and my stomach just hit the floor. I got here as soon as I could.”

Josh watches as Sam carefully approaches Donna’s bed, taking everything in. It’s jarring, seeing Sam – he hasn’t seen Sam since they went to California during Sam’s run for Congress. That’s not to say they haven’t spoken. They talk on the phone occasionally, usually when Donna hands Josh the phone and forces him to say hello after she and Sam have finished their scheduled weekly chats. But Sam hadn’t even come to D.C. to visit, so it makes even less sense that he’d show up in Germany. Finally, his curiosity wins out. “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here? Not that – you know, I’m not – glad to see you.”

Sam looks up, letting Josh’s question sink in, then laughs. “Josh.”

“Seriously – it’s a long flight from D.C., so it has to be a hell of a lot longer from California. Could’ve called. Me or the White House.”

“I did. Both. You didn’t answer, and Leo – well, he told me what happened, and then it was a no-brainer.”

“Still doesn’t really explain why you’re here,” Josh points out.

Sam folds his arms across his chest, scuffs his shoe against an imaginary mark on the floor. “Same reason as you are, ultimately. Well, okay, it’s very different, when you put it side by side, but… the showing up for someone you love part is the same.”

Josh whips his head around to look at Sam. “Showing up for someone you love?”

“Josh,” Sam laughs. “We’ve been playing this game for six years now. Are we really going to keep playing it? After all you two have been through?”

“It’s not a – it’s not a game, Sam,” Josh sighs.

There’s a moment of silence between them, one that hangs heavy in the air, making it hard to breathe. But Sam cuts through it with a knife. “Josh Lyman, you are the most loyal person I’ve ever met,” he starts, putting his hands in his pockets. “You’re brilliant, and passionate, and you’d do just about anything for any one of us. But this is different and you know it.”

Josh remembers a conversation with Sam from a few years ago, one he’d tried to push aside, bury deep, as though if he ignored it, he wouldn’t have to confront it. She goes out with guys. Are you jealous? Josh, of course, had denied it. There was no way he was jealous of Donna’s gomers, these guys who were almost always unmitigated disasters. He’d admitted to sabotaging these outings, something he’d never given a conscious thought to prior to that moment, but – okay, perhaps there was some jealousy at play, something he’d locked away and refused to confront.

Although he’s confronted them now, sort of, he’s not sure how Sam knows what’s happening here. It’s almost like Sam can sense that Josh has been thinking about this, like Sam knows there’s a ring burning a metaphorical hole in Josh’s backpack. But he doesn’t know, has absolutely no way of knowing, because Josh has barely known it twenty-four hours himself.

Sam continues. “Donna’s different – she always has been. Coming here was never going to be a question, when it came down to it. That’s why I’m here. You’re here for her, and I’m here for you. Both of you, really, since being here for you is being here for her by extension. To hear everyone else tell it, you’ve been a mess,” Sam explains.

Josh opens his mouth to argue but closes it instead, knowing that he’s not going to be able to convince Sam that he’s not a complete trainwreck. Josh’s shirt is wrinkled, his tie is hanging loose around his neck. He hasn’t eaten in what is definitely over twenty-four hours at this point. He’s certain that if he lifted his arm and did the sniff test on his shirt, he wouldn’t pass.

When Josh doesn’t push back, Sam places a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “You need to eat something. You need to get a hotel room –”

“I’m not going to get a hotel room,” Josh growls, pulling his shoulder away and taking a few steps to his right. “This isn’t a fucking vacation, Sam! Do you see her?” He’s furious, and he can feel his volume rising, but somehow he manage to keep it just above a whisper in case Donna wakes up. The last thing he wants is to make this harder on Donna than it needs to be, and he imagines that Donna waking up to find Josh and Sam arguing would, in fact, make things harder.

Sam seems to understand, perhaps better than most. He doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t hold it against him, doesn’t take it personally. “Are her parents coming?”

“Her mom’s coming,” Josh says, lowering himself back into the chair by Donna’s bed. “Won’t be here for a while, though.”

Sam nods. “Okay. I can get her from the airport. Donna’s mom loves me.”

Josh shakes his head. “Not as much as she loves me. Remember in Madison when she had me stir the pasta sauce?” he asks, referring to the evening Donna’s parents had the campaign staff over for dinner.

“Well, later on, she had me drying dishes. That’s the easiest job of them all,” Sam counters.

Josh ignores Sam’s statement. “She probably won’t even leave for another –” he looks at his watch, which is still set to Eastern time. Mrs. Moss is taking the red eye, so… he stares at the watch face, the numbers swimming in his vision. He gives up after a few moments, putting his head in his hands.

He feels a hand on his shoulder once again, but doesn’t pull away this time. “It’s gonna be okay,” Sam declares, as if he could see into the future and know this with certainty.

Josh just hopes Sam’s right.

Donna’s in and out of consciousness for a while.

But when she wakes again, she’s a little more like the Donna he knows and – well, loves. Josh stands by her bedside, keenly aware of the feelings he’s been burying for years coming to the surface. Josh tries to get her to eat something from the lunch that was left for her, but she declines, explaining that she’s not hungry.

He glances at the tray, hoping to find something to kickstart Donna’s appetite. He spots a slice of German chocolate cake, lifting it to show her. He feels a warmth blooming in his chest when he remembers the two of them huddled up in a booth across from CJ and Toby at some greasy spoon diner in the Southeast during the first campaign. She’d ordered German chocolate cake for dessert, and the slice that was brought to the table was big enough to be considered another entree. She’d been so tired that she was sugar high for the remainder of the night, giggling on the back of the campaign bus while everyone else tried to sleep.

“German chocolate cake,” Josh says, hoping it will entice her to eat.

“Really, I’m kind of nauseous,” Donna replies, shifting in the bed again.

The admission, coupled with the pain in her voice and how groggy she is in general, makes him want to crawl into bed with her, to hold her the way she used to hold him after a nightmare, to press kisses to her hair and tell her it will all be okay. But that’s too much too soon. So instead, he returns the cake to the tray, then fidgets with his own hands for a moment.

“Your mom’s on the way to New York. She’s gonna take the red eye tonight,” he explains, dropping his hands to the surely uncomfortable mattress of Donna’s hospital bed.

“How long are you staying?” Donna asks, glancing down at his hands, and then at him.

“I don’t know,” Josh starts.

He’s interrupted by Sam, returning to the hospital room with a cup of coffee in each hand. Sam sees the two of them, then stops in his tracks for a moment. His eyes go wide, and a few seconds later, his brain seems to kickstart. “Donna,” he says, sounding slightly surprised to see her.

Donna narrows her eyes, then looks at Josh. “Am I… are these pain meds making me high? Is… that Sam?”

“In the flesh,” Sam says.

Donna doesn’t seem convinced. “Really?”

Josh laughs. He considers telling her about the fact that he thought he was delirious when Sam walked in, but he decides against it, choosing not to add more to her plate. “Yeah. That’s really him.”

Sam places both of the coffee cups on Donna’s bedside tray table, then leans down to hug her gently. Donna lifts her left arm to pat him on the shoulder. “I’d hug you back, but… everything kind of hurts,” she says.

“It’s okay. It’s so good to see you, although I wish it weren’t under such horrific circumstances,” Sam replies. “I heard the news, and then I called Josh, and – well, when Josh doesn’t answer his phone, there’s certainly cause for concern. Turns out he was on his way to see you. So I did the only thing I could do in this case, and I found the next flight to Germany.”

Donna smiles, but it looks like it takes some effort. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. It means a lot,” she says, responding to Sam, but looking directly at Josh.

When she locks eyes with him, it’s like everything else disappears, like all that’s left is the two of them. They’re in a busy hospital, with machines beeping, and bright lights, and… well, Sam, but it feels like it’s just Josh and Donna. The sound of Sam’s cell phone cuts through the silence, and he glances at them apologetically as he locates his phone. When he puts it to his ear, he points to it, then to the hallway, as if to indicate that this is where he can be found if he’s needed.

Sam exits the room and Josh turns his attention back to Donna. “Want me to grab a nurse? Let someone know you don’t feel well?”

Donna shakes her head. “You didn’t answer my question earlier,” she says. He senses that she’s trying to tease him, to bring some levity to the situation. Instead, it comes out sounding sleepy, a little forced, as though she’s in pain.

“Hmm?”

“How long are you staying?” Her eyes flutter open, gazing into his, and there’s that tidal wave of feelings again, cresting in his gut, pulling him under. “Doesn’t Leo need you to –”

He reaches for her hand, instinctively. “I’m here as long as I need to be here,” he says. “As long as you’ll have me.”

When the words tumble out, he’s more certain than ever that the statement has implications beyond the walls of the hospital room. Leo could order him home, and he’d be drafting his letter of resignation to the President moments later if Donna still needed him. Donna stares back at him, the ghost of a smile on her face, until her eyes close again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Josh can see Sam close his phone and start to talk to someone in the hallway. The man has a bag slung over his shoulder, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Josh can’t hear the entirety of the conversation from where he’s standing, but he can make out the name Donna Moss, in an Irish accent that is surely a put-on.

The conversation lasts about a minute. All Josh can see is the back of Sam’s head, but based on the mystery Irishman’s silence, Sam seems to be doing most of the talking. The man hands Sam the bouquet of flowers before catching Josh’s eye. He nods in Josh’s direction, which feels more like an acknowledgment than a polite greeting, then turns down the hall and walks away.

Sam re-enters, bouquet in hand, looking helplessly around the room for something to put the flowers in. “Now I’m going to have to find a vase for these,” he mutters.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?” Sam asks, distracted, opening cabinets and drawers as though if he opens the right one, he’s going to find what he’s looking for.

“Who was that guy?”

Sam freezes, looking up at Josh. “No one. I mean – he’s not no one, of course he’s someone. Someone Donna met in Gaza. But he’s not staying. He dropped off the flowers and left.”

There’s nervous energy radiating off of Sam in waves, like he’s bracing himself for impact. “I’m just going to – maybe someone’s left a vase somewhere.” Sam scurries out of the room, leaving Josh alone with a sleeping Donna.

That afternoon, Sam tries to get Josh to take the second bed in his hotel room, even just for a nap. Sam offers to stay with Donna, to call Josh the second he’s needed or requested. But Josh can’t bring himself to leave. So once Sam goes to get some rest, Josh stretches out in the makeshift chair-bed he’s created. He knows he won’t be able to do much other than doze, given how uncomfortable the setup is, but this ensures that he won’t miss it if Donna needs something.

Sure enough, Donna stirs an hour later, and Josh is by her side before she even opens her eyes. For a moment, he wonders if she’s still asleep, but then she looks at him. “You look terrible,” she murmurs, brows knitting together in an unidentifiable expression.

“You’re a real charmer, Donnatella Moss,” Josh quips. “Nearly swept me off my feet with that one.”

“Hmm,” she replies, as though she’s trying to participate in their usual back and forth but can’t gather the energy. “You need to sleep.”

“I slept in the chair right there.” Josh gestures to the chair across the room.

Donna looks directly at him and sighs. Now she’s awake. “In a bed, Josh.”

“I’m not leaving you, Donna. You slept in that chair at GW for how long?” Josh reaches over to her tray and grabs her cup of water. It’s another acknowledgment of their mutual understanding, one they scarcely allow themselves to talk about but never hesitate to act on. They haven’t spoken about this since Donna took the last of her things out of his apartment on a chilly November night.

She looks at him, studying him as she accepts the cup and takes a sip. Despite Josh’s attempts to make things feel normal, like they usually feel, there’s an undercurrent of something else entirely, that thing they’ve never addressed but always seems to be there. “Until your mom kicked me out,” she says softly. She starts toying with her straw, as though this has given her something to think about.

“And from what I heard, you put up quite the fight,” Josh continues.

Her eyes lock with his now, and she exhales shakily. “Well, conveniently, my mother is on her way,” she says. “And if you won’t listen to me, you’ll listen to her.”

Teresa Moss is a force to be reckoned with, Josh knows. Upon meeting Teresa, it was obvious where Donna gets her stubborn streak, her quick wit, her ability to give someone grief in an affectionate and playful way. He sensed immediately that, much like Donna, it was unwise to get on her bad side. But he also knows that Teresa, for some reason, seems to really like him, to understand him in a way that a lot of people don’t. “I’ll take my chances with Teresa,” he says. He takes the cup of water back, then places it on her tray.

The grogginess seems to slowly be wearing off for Donna, even temporarily. He can tell she’s still in pain, that she’s still a little out of it, but she’s acting a bit more like herself. She glances around the room, probably trying to anchor herself to some temporal guidepost, when her eyes land on the bouquet of flowers the visitor with the probably-fake Irish accent brought earlier. “Did Sam bring those?” she asks.

Josh takes a beat, considers how to answer this. He doesn’t want to withhold information from Donna, but then again he doesn’t have a lot of information to withhold in the first place. Considering Sam darted out of the room as quickly as he could earlier, then returned only to grab his duffel bag before heading to his hotel to freshen up and take a nap, the opportunity to dig for information hasn’t presented itself. “No,” he says, opting for the truth. “Some guy who says he met you in Gaza. Irish guy.”

He sees a look of understanding form on Donna’s face, as though she’s connecting a series of dots that exist only in her mind. “Oh. That’s — huh.” She doesn’t seem unhappy, but she’s certainly not happy, either. If anything she seems… confused.

“Everything okay?” Josh asks.

Donna nods. “Fine.”

But she doesn’t look fine — injuries aside, she looks as though she’s processing a lot of information that her brain isn’t prepared to handle, like she’s trying to make sense of a message written in a secret code. “You sure?” Josh asks, not intending to push, but to give her an opening if she needs it.

She sighs, then looks over at him, holding his gaze for a moment. “I — the guy. Colin. We met in Gaza. I — wasn’t planning on keeping in touch, which is why it’s sort of odd that he showed up here. Before I left, CJ and I — when we were all locked down? She… we were talking, and she… she tried to give me some perspective on some things I had been thinking about for a long time. I get what she was doing, and she wasn’t entirely wrong. But…”

She’s lucid enough that this isn’t the morphine making her tell this story in such a circuitous way. Josh remembers the night they were all locked down, when he and Commander Harper were together in his office and the NSC cutting his joke was his biggest concern. “Perspective on what?” Josh asks, attempting to follow Donna’s line of thinking.

“I don’t know, I was thinking a lot about my time at the White House, and how I wanted to… grow, and – and have more responsibility, and then… it all kind of took a turn, and suddenly… we weren’t talking about me, we were talking about you and me,” Donna explains.

“You and me?” Josh repeats.

“Well, yeah. It was all… I don’t know. It was a lot to process, and… I don’t know. She said I needed to move on, to seek other opportunities, to… do things that have nothing to do with you.”

Josh feels all the air whoosh out of his lungs. What was that even supposed to mean, things that had nothing to do with him? Everyone in the administration knows jow valuable Donna is, knows that she’s clearly the most capable assistant in the White House. She knows Josh better than he knows himself, can run circles around him on his best days. He trusts her with his life.

She’s been pushing him lately to do more, for the opportunity to grow. And he’s been keeping her right where she is, simply because he didn’t want to lose her. And with that thought, the pieces come together. You and me. It’s now very clear what CJ was talking to her about. “Donna, I —”

“It’s fine,” she says, placing her hand over his where it’s resting beside her. “It’s not — I’ve had other offers, Josh, and I’ve turned them all down. Nobody works eighteen hour days, six or seven days a week, for a salary that is, frankly, a little embarrassing, without a reason.” She gently squeezes his hand for emphasis.

Now his stomach flips, looking down at her hand over his. He stares for a moment, trying to wrestle with the potential subtext of this gesture. It’s like he sees everything in a new light, from a new perspective. The things that used to mean nothing mean something now, but did they ever really mean nothing in the first place?

The door clicks and Donna’s nurse walks in, bringing Josh back to the present.

Sam returns to Donna’s hospital room a few hours later, still entirely too exuberant for a man who spent over twenty-four hours in transit to Germany. He’s showered, shaved, and changed, opting for jeans and a t-shirt instead of the button-down and khakis he always, inexplicably, wears on planes. He glances at Donna, who has fallen asleep after another dose of morphine, and walks over to Josh’s chair. He raps his knuckles on the back of the chair, then takes the seat next to Josh’s.

“How’s she feeling?” Sam asks.

“She’s in a lot of pain,” Josh says, pushing up at the sleeve of his shirt.

Sam takes a sip of his coffee. “Is there a plan for getting her back home?”

Josh shakes his head. “Not yet. Maybe when her mom gets here.”

They sit in silence for a few beats, Sam drinking his coffee and Josh watching Donna sleep. Their shared moment from earlier plays on loop in his mind – he can still feel her hand wrapped around his, still see the look on her face when she admitted what she and CJ talked about.

“That guy who came by. The one who had flowers for Donna,” Josh starts.

“What about him?” Sam asks, taking a sip of coffee.

Josh rubs the back of his neck, hesitates for a moment. “Did he — did he say anything to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“About Donna,” Josh continues. “You know, what… how he knew her. She said she wasn’t planning on keeping in touch with him but she didn’t give many details.”

This seems to be what Sam was worried about earlier. Sam shifts in his seat, fingernail dragging across a divot in the lid of his coffee cup. “He really didn’t say much either,” Sam hedges, not making eye contact with Josh.

“He clearly said something, because you’re over there shaking like a leaf,” Josh points out.

“Fine,” Sam says. “Fine. You want to know the truth? He said he and Donna had spent a few days together while she was there. That he enjoyed his time with her, and what happened to her and to the others was very sad.”

“Very sad? That’s all he has to say?”

Sam ignores this and continues. “He asked if he could see her, and I – well, I had to make a judgment call.”

“A judgment call,” Josh repeats. It’s not a question.

“And… okay, look, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, because frankly it’s none of my business. But I think he and Donna… may have… seen each other for non-work related purposes. Socially.”

“Wait. You think they slept together?!” Josh hears his volume escalate, winces, and immediately lowers his voice to a half-whisper.

“He may have… implied that there was a… connection of a… temporary, perhaps sexual nature, yes.”

“She told me that they met in Gaza, and that she was surprised to see him, but… she didn’t tell me that.”

Sam folds his arms across his chest, rolling his eyes. “I can’t imagine why.”

Josh feels a wave of nausea hit him, feels his chest start to tighten the way it used to when he’d see her dance with some intern from the Hill, or when she’d told him about Cliff Calley, when she’d talk about Jack Reese and his trouser buttons. He quickly tamps it down, clears his throat, and runs a hand through his hair. “The American gomers weren’t good enough, so she’s moved on to the Irish ones?”

“Josh.”

“He’ll fly to the states for most things, I’d imagine. Trans-Atlantic flights are expensive, and I certainly don’t pay her enough to go see him on a regular basis,” Josh continues, following the hypothetical scenario down the illogical rabbit trail of possibilities.

Sam sighs, the long-suffering sigh of a best friend who has seen too much, knows him too well. “Whatever happened between them was obviously a one-time thing if she wasn’t planning on keeping in touch. She’s not bent out of shape about him leaving, he wasn’t upset about me turning him away… they both knew what this was. It didn’t mean anything.”

“So you ran interference. To what end?”

“I think you two both need to be honest with each other. Frankly, you’ve needed to for years, but you’ve already almost lost each other once and neither of you made a move. You’ve been jealous of anyone who goes near her with any sort of potentially amorous intentions since the day you met her, and Donna’s never been wild about the women you’ve dated, either,” Sam points out.

“I dated Mandy Hampton and Amy Gardner. They’re not exactly the most likable people on the planet,” Josh replies.

“You two act like couple who’s been married twenty years as it is,” Sam continues, ignoring Josh’s objection. “You’ve never exactly been subtle about your feelings. Hell, you threw snowballs at her window in front of a reporter for the Washington Post!”

“You heard about that?” Josh laughs.

“Of course I did.” Sam stands up, placing a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “So. It’s time for you to go back to my hotel room. Shower. Shave. Get some rest. Borrow some of my clothes and come back in a little while.”

Sam is ushering Josh out of the room before Josh can actively make the choice to leave.

Sunflowers are Donna’s favorite.

But when he arrives back at the hospital, he’s holding a bouquet of roses instead. There’s no ambiguity there, no room for misunderstanding. For once in his life, he’s going to try to say what he means.

He did what Sam told him to. Well. Mostly. He went back to Sam’s hotel room. He took a shower. Shaved. Then, he stared at the ceiling in a futile attempt to sleep, instead formulating a plan. Then, he borrowed some clothes from Sam, got dressed, and asked the hotel concierge for the nearest florist.

He’s going to tell Donna how he feels.

He’s been trying to write his own speech since Sam kicked him out of Donna’s hospital room. Donna, I’ve had feelings for you since — no, that doesn’t sound right. Donna, I know we keep doing this thing where we pretend like there’s nothing between us — that comes on a little too strong. Maybe something as simple as Donna, I’ve loved you since you walked into my office and hired yourself?

He’s never understood how Sam and Toby do it — put thoughts into words on a page, words that spur people to action, help them form an opinion about a candidate or an issue, even just make them feel things. When he tries to sit with his thoughts, to mold and shape them into something that comes close to communicating what he needs to, it comes out muddled, awkward, stilted.

But for Donna, he’s going to find a way.

For Donna, who knows him better than anyone ever has or ever will. Donna, who sees right through him in a way that should be terrifying, but is actually comforting. For her, he will do just about anything.

The elevator reaches Donna’s floor and he rounds the corner, down the hallway to her hospital room. He extends his hand, resting it on the door handle as he takes a steadying breath. He releases it and swings the door open, ready to ramble on in what he hopes is a way that makes him seem charmingly nervous instead of deranged.

But Donna’s not there.

There’s no one in the room. There’s not even a bed. All he can see is the blood — blood on a latex glove, on something that looks like a bed sheet, even on her pillow. Cords and tubes that were once attached to Donna are intermingled in the mess, as though they were disconnected in a hurry.

His blood runs cold — it’s a feeling of terror he’s all too familiar with, one he associates with the smell of smoke and the heat of flames. And suddenly, he’s hearing Joanie’s voice.

Run, Josh!

And so he does.

He has no idea who he’s looking for, or what he’ll do when he gets there. But he darts down the hallway, dodging a few members of the hospital staff in the hallway as he rounds the corner. He finds the nurse’s station, and the question is out of his mouth before he even reaches the desk.

“Where's Donna Moss?” he asks, trying to stay calm, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels.

There must have been a shift change, or an assignment change, because the nurse manning the station is someone Josh hasn’t seen since his arrival. “Excuse me?” the nurse asks.

“Donna Moss. She's not in her room.”

“Are you a relative?” The nurse raises her eyebrows when she asks the question, and Josh immediately senses that this woman is going to make this even more difficult than it already is.

It’s already a gut punch, the reminder that Josh is nothing to Donna, at least not in the eyes of the military hospital personnel. Josh summons every ounce of strength he has to keep his tone as even as possible. “I work for the President of the United States; I have the diplomatic rank of a three-star general; tell me where Donna Moss is,” he insists.

The nurse presses her mouth into a line, unimpressed by Josh’s show of pulling rank. Josh tries to gather his thoughts, to figure out his next step, when he hears a commotion coming from behind him. It’s Sam, who seems to have made the same discovery Josh had just moments prior.

“Josh!” Sam shouts, running toward the nurse’s station. “What happened?”

“What do you mean what happened?!” Josh shouts. “You were supposed to be in there with her!”

“I left for maybe ten minutes, and then they came to get her for some tests, so I went back down to the cafeteria for some coffee,” Sam says.

Josh shoves the roses into Sam’s hands and takes off down the hallway, trying to find his way to wherever Donna might be. He pushes his way past a door, ignoring the sign clearly marked DO NOT ENTER, and sees an occupied operating room to his right. The patient is clearly not Donna, so he continues his search, glancing in every window until he runs into Colonel Leahy. He’s scrubbing in, and Josh immediately feels his stomach lurch.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't go in there,” Colonel Leahy says.

Josh can’t even get the words out. “What's...?”

“There's been a complication. She developed a pulmonary embolism. It's a –”

“A blood clot,” Josh finishes, in unison with Colonel Leahy.

Leahy nods. “We're trying to remove it now,” he says, backing into the operating room and leaving Josh alone outside the door.

It’s like the earth has shifted on its axis. A pulmonary embolism. Surely the universe can’t be this cruel, to take Donna from him the same way his dad was taken from him. He watches through the window for a moment as they start to prep Donna for surgery, and his heart feels as though it’s been torn in half.

A moment passes and the same nurse from the nurse’s station comes to escort him back to the waiting area. Josh takes a seat across from Sam, who is already sitting. He can see Sam’s concerned expression in the faint glow of the lights from the hall and the televisions hanging on the wall. “What did they say?”

“She’s… she has a pulmonary embolism. They’re prepping her for surgery now.”

Sam shifts the roses, still sitting in his lap. “Josh…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Colonel Leahy approach, and he hops up from his chair.

“Ms. Moss was experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain. Her chest CT revealed a blood clot in her right lung. She asked if she could see you for a moment before we put her under.”

Josh has to take a moment to process that. Donna asked for him? He feels a surge of adrenaline, mixed in with a bunch of other things he couldn’t name if he tried, but he can’t seem to figure out what he should do next.

“Go,” Sam says, gently pushing him forward.

They scrub Josh in and lead him toward the operating room where Donna’s being prepped for surgery. He follows Colonel Leahy inside, taking some tentative steps toward the operating table Donna is lying on. It seems like all they have left to do is put Donna under, so they’ve given her a pad of paper and a marker to write down anything she’d like to say.

Donna looks so pale under the blinding lights in the operating room. It makes the bright pink of her cheeks, her eyes, and her nose much more obvious, an indication that she’s either been crying or trying to hold back tears.

He hates it when Donna cries. It makes his chest physically ache, ties his stomach in knots. On instinct, he springs into action, attempting to ease her mind. “I just talked to the doctor; they said it's no big deal.”

Donna begins to write on the notepad, then turns it toward Josh for him to read.

NICE HAT!

“Yeah, it’s stylish, huh?” Josh replies, which earns a soft huff of laughter from Donna, despite the oxygen mask. “They tell you what they're going to do?”

She nods.

“It's gonna be a snap,” Josh says in the most reassuring tone he can manage.

Donna begins to write again, and Josh follows the movement of her hand as the marker glides across the pad of paper. Donna turns the paper toward Josh once again.

SCARED.

The truth is, he’s just as terrified as she is. They both remember the night his dad died, when Donna held him as he cried into her shoulder. But they wordlessly come to an understanding to bury that fear, just like they’ve buried everything else.

Except he’s not going to let everything else stay buried. Not when he could lose her for good. “Yeah. Don't be,” he starts. She nods, as though she’s choosing to trust him. “You're going to be fine, okay?”

Donna nods again, and this time Josh can see the tears falling from her eyes when she does. “Look, I – have to say something, and I know this is a lot, especially right now. But I can’t leave without saying it. I love you, Donna. I’ve loved you for a long time, and – I don’t expect –”

Donna’s eyes widen, and Josh’s heart drops to his stomach. He watches as Donna tears the first piece of paper off the notepad, dropping it beside her, then starts frantically scribbling something on a new piece of paper. She blinks back a few tears, then turns the pad of paper for a third time to show him what she’s written.

I LOVE YOU TOO

Josh can feel himself grin, despite the fact that she can’t see it. He reaches out for her hand, desperate for physical connection, even for a brief moment. He places his hand over hers, and she reaches out for it with her other hand in an attempt to keep it there as he starts to pull back. For a fraction of a second, he forgets that Donna’s about to undergo life-saving surgery. But the reality of the situation hits him when Colonel Leahy’s voice bursts the bubble. “Okay, Donna, here we go.”

He’s not going to risk losing her without making sure she knows exactly what she means to him, the full extent of it. “Marry me,” Josh says quickly. “Donna, will you marry me?”

She looks stunned, but recovers quickly. Donna reaches for the notepad, breaking their physical connection. One more time, she writes her answer on the notepad, as quickly as she can, and shows him her answer.

YES

He looks at the paper, and then into her eyes, shining with tears. He almost can’t believe it, that this is actually happening, but her answer is there, written on the page, leaving no room for second-guessing.

“Yes?” he asks, just to have this to hold onto until he sees her again.

She nods, the tears falling freely now. Josh leans in and kisses her forehead, lingering for a beat, trying to commit everything about this moment to memory. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he says.

And then he’s escorted out of the room.

Josh walks out of the operating room in a daze. He pulls his scrub cap off, staring blankly ahead as the events of the last few minutes come crashing back to him one wave at a time. He’s frozen there standing in the middle of the hallway just outside the operating room. It’s like his brain isn’t connected to his body anymore; no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to move.

He feels a hand between his shoulder blades, steering him down the hall and toward the waiting area. “You wanna… take all that off?” Sam asks.

Every move he makes takes effort; his limbs feel heavy. Once he removes his scrubs and his gloves, Sam disappears down the hallway to dispose of them. Meanwhile, Josh takes a seat, looking at the piece of paper in his hands.

I LOVE YOU TOO

YES

It’s comforting, reading those words in her handwriting, knowing that she feels the same way, that she wants what he wants, that all of this meant something. But it’s gut-wrenching, too, realizing that Josh has everything he could ever ask for, and it might be taken from him as quickly as it was given to him. He lets out a shaky exhale, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.

He’s only vaguely aware of his surroundings for awhile. He can hear the overhead pages and the general hustle and bustle of the hospital. But once Sam returns from disposing of Josh’s scrubs and gloves, he doesn’t leave Josh’s side. They sit in shared silence for a long time; Josh isn’t ready to share what happened, and Sam isn’t going to ask.

So they wait.

Finally, Josh has to get all this out of his head. He straightens up in his chair and turns toward Sam, who has his elbow against an arm rest on the chair and his head in his hand, startles at the sound. “You okay?” he asks, squinting, as though he had dozed off.

“I told her I loved her,” Josh says without preamble.

Sam raises his eyebrows. “You… told her you loved her.”

“I — I walked in there, and — God, Sam, it was the worst possible timing, but… I needed her to know. Just in case. And then I — I asked her to marry me.”

“You told her you loved her, she said she loved you too. And then you proposed to her,” Sam says.

“Yeah.”

“In the operating room.”

“If you’re about to critique the proposal, Sam, I gotta tell ya —”

Sam laughs, though it sounds a little sad. “Wasn’t gonna. Was she able to answer you?”

Josh hands Sam the paper and watches as Sam takes a moment to read it. Then, Sam looks at Josh, this time with a genuine grin. He wraps his right arm around Josh, patting Josh’s shoulder a couple of times and holding out the piece of paper. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Josh replies, accepting the paper and letting out a long exhale.

Sam pulls his arm back, resting his elbows on his knees. Neither of them say anything for a few moments, letting the silence hang between them, until Sam speaks again. “You know, I’ve been drafting a proposal speech for you,” he says, almost as if it’s an afterthought.

Josh laughs, in spite of himself. “You what?”

“I’ve had different versions over the years — I was going to get your input, of course, let you make it your own. I didn’t bring it because despite my insistence that you tell her how you feel, I didn’t anticipate you proposing.”

It’s a nice gesture. It’s that unique Sam Seaborn brand of optimism, that unrelenting positivity even in the worst of times. Josh can hear Donna’s voice in his head: it’s romantic, Josh. And he supposes it is. “I appreciate it, Sam.”

“I’ll let you look over it when I help you write your vows,” Sam says, again falling back on that confidence that everything will be okay, that Donna will be okay.

“Right,” Josh says. “Okay.”

Josh wishes he felt as sure about that as Sam does.

It feels like they’ve waited for days. Every time a door opens, every time someone in scrubs passes by, Josh is on high alert, preparing himself for every possible outcome.

Each scenario he thinks of is different than the next; some are more bleak than others. But in every single one, Josh is by Donna’s side, no matter the outcome. He would never have it any other way.

“Mr. Lyman.”

Josh stands when he hears Colonel Leahy. “How's she doing?”

“We encountered a few difficulties during the procedure,” Colonel Leahy says. “She lost a substantial amount of blood. We had to transfuse and call in a vascular surgeon to repair the tear.”

Josh feels dizzy. This can’t be happening. It can’t. Donna was going to be fine, despite her injuries. She was going to be fine, and now –

“But – she’s going to be okay, right?” Sam asks.

“She's still unconscious. As soon as she's stable we'll send her off for an MRI. Between the anemia and the low blood pressure she may have suffered hypoxic brain injury. Decreased oxygen delivery can result in brain damage.”

When Colonel Leahy leaves, Josh backs himself against a wall. He takes a few shaky breaths, then slumps down to the floor. He brings his knees to his chest, curling into a ball.

He wants to cry, but he can’t.

Sam heads out to pick Donna’s mom up from the airport.

While she’s gone, they move Donna into a room in the ICU. A nurse comes to escort him there, then helps him situate the chair by the head of her bed. The nurse leaves them alone for the first time and he looks at Donna, unsure of what to say or do. Could she hear him? Was this one of those situations where someone’s voice could bring her back? Was that even a real thing?

It’s about an hour before the door opens and Sam enters, followed by Teresa Moss.

Teresa looks exhausted. Her eyes are red from crying, and her hair is falling out of her messy ponytail. “Oh, mia amata,” she whispers, moving toward Donna’s bed. She smooths back Donna’s hair, brushes her lips against Donna’s forehead.

Josh starts to walk around the bed toward the door, attempting to give Teresa and Donna some space. But Teresa gently captures his wrist on the way by, pulling him in for a hug. “Joshua,” she says.

Josh doesn’t say anything — he doesn’t know what he could say that could possibly be appropriate in a situation like this. So he simply hugs her back, hoping that it’s even the smallest comfort. When she pulls back, she braces a hand on either of his arms, just above his elbows. “Sam gave me the update,” she says. “How are you holding up?”

Josh shrugs. “They say we won’t know anything for —”

Teresa rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips in a way that is eerily reminiscent of Donna. “Not what I asked,” she says. “How are you?”

“Ask me that again when Donna wakes up,” Josh says.

With this, Teresa turns to Sam. “Sam, honey, could you give us a minute?”

Sam nods. “Of course. I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me.”

Teresa and Josh watch as Sam walks out of the room and turns down the hall. “You came all the way from D.C.,” she says, matter of factly.

“I… yeah. I did.”

“Why?”

The question catches him off guard. “I’m sorry?”

“Why did you come all the way from D.C.?”

“Mrs. Moss.”

“Oh, for crying out loud. It’s Teresa, please.” she says, hands still planted firmly on her hips, giving him a steely gaze.

“Teresa,” Josh says. “If my being here is —”

Teresa groans. Actually groans, dropping her head back, hands thrown out to the side. “I know Donna doesn’t put up with bullshit and I don’t either. So I’m going to ask you one more time. Why did you come here?”

He knows why he came, of course. It’s because she would have done – has done – the same for him. Because he wanted to be by her side when she needed him. Because he loves her, and he needed to tell her.

“Because… it’s Donna,” he says, voice cracking. “It’s Donna, and she’s… I… there’s nowhere else I could even think about being right now.”

Just like Donna always does, Teresa knows exactly what he means. “Joshua, I — there’s something I need you to know,” she says, hand moving to fidget with the band on her watch.

Josh’s stomach drops. He’s not sure he can take much more, given Donna’s condition and the events of the last – however many hours it’s been since he stood in the bullpen and waited to hear if Donna was even alive. “Okay.”

“Donna — Donna loves you. She’s loved you for a long time now. She hasn’t told you because she’s afraid it will ruin what you have, that you don’t feel the same way —”

“I asked Donna to marry me,” Josh blurts out.

“What?”

“I asked her to marry me. Before she went in for surgery, she — she was scared. She asked to see me before they put her under, and I — I’d been thinking about it for a long time. I brought a ring with me, for reasons passing understanding.”

Teresa hugs him again, tighter this time, gently rubbing his back. It’s exactly how Donna used to do it all the times he woke up in a cold sweat. Suddenly he’s transported back to his bedroom, his face buried in Donna’s shoulder as she tries to comfort him. And Josh finally breaks.

He can feel the tears starting to come, and he takes a ragged breath. He feels ridiculous, crying when Teresa is managing to hold it together despite the fact that her daughter is unconscious in the bed beside them and may or may not have sustained a brain injury.

But Teresa simply holds him as long as he needs to be held, until he finally feels like he’s crossed some invisible line. She reaches up and brushes some of his tears away, and gives him her own watery smile. “Welcome to the family,” she says. She must see some hesitation in Josh’s expression, because she continues, in a tone more firm than before. “No matter what happens, Josh, you’re part of our family now. Do you understand?”

Josh just nods, letting the words sink in.

Teresa reaches into her purse, pulling out a small package of tissues. She removes one and dabs gently at her eyes, letting out a sigh. “Well. I’m going to need her to wake up, if I’m going to be helping her choose a wedding dress.”

Josh is surprised by the laugh that comes out of him.

Being alone with his thoughts is dangerous, really.

Sam and Teresa have gone to find something to eat. In the hours since her arrival, Teresa has forced Josh out twice, once for fresh air and again for food. He did as she asked, despite his anxiety at the thought of being away from Donna, simply because he knows it’s what Donna would want.

The problem is, when he’s alone with his thoughts, and he’s already this stressed out, he begins to spiral. Now, it’s worse than his usual spirals, because with everything that’s happened, he’s beginning to lose hope.

He’s not sure if he ever had hope in the first place, given how this sort of thing has gone for him in the past. People leave him, and they leave him too soon, and usually in the most unfair and devastating of ways.

Which is why when he first hears her voice, he fears that he’s manifested it somehow. “Josh?” Her voice is quiet, tentative, almost scared.

He turns his head toward her, sees her blink a few times, and his heart starts pounding. Please, please let this be real.

“Josh? Josh…”

He stands, slowly, and leans in to look at her. The bruises on her face are starting to darken, her pupils are dilated, and her hair is starting to tangle – but to him, this is the most beautiful she’s ever looked. She’s awake. She knows his name. These have to be good signs.

“Hey, you're awake. Your mom is here. Sam took her downstairs for some... I don't know, some schnitzel, or something.”

“You’re still here,” she murmurs, sounding surprised, but grateful.

He wants to tell her he’ll never leave her again, that he’ll stay there with her forever, but that’s impossible. Instead, he simply looks at her, takes her in for a moment, waiting for her to open her eyes so he can answer her. “Yeah,” he confirms, feeling the tension drain from his body for the first time in days. “I’m still here.”

Josh adjusts her blanket, pulls it up toward her shoulders and gently kisses her forehead. Her eyes flutter open at the contact, and he sees the hint of a smile on her face. “How long are you staying?” she asks.

It’s the same question she’s asked twice already, and he briefly wonders how much of the last few days she remembers. “As long as you’ll have me,” he says.

This seems to be the correct answer. She gives a little hum of approval, then looks at him, eyes darting back and forth. She’s not entirely coherent, but just moments ago he wasn’t sure if he’d ever have anything close to this, so for once, he can’t find it in him to catastrophize.

“Where’s my ring?” she finally asks in a whisper.

The question knocks him breathless. He clears his throat, swipes at a tear that has started to fall. “You… still want that?”

She pauses for a moment, a long, torturous moment, before she answers. “Do you?”

“More than anything, if you’ll have me.”

This time, to Josh’s relief, her response is almost immediate. “Yes.”

It’s the best sound he’s ever heard.

May 2006

Josh has a plan.

He’s running through the schedule of events with the campaign staff when notices his candidate exiting the hotel elevator out of the corner of his eye. He excuses himself, tells Lou he’ll be right back as he hands her the daily rundown. Josh asks the Congressman if they can speak privately, and the Congressman agrees, opening the door to the empty hotel conference room and extending a hand, inviting Josh to sit.

“Everything all right?” Congressman Santos asks.

“Yeah. Uh, well, mostly. I wanted to talk to you about something. I – I’m sure you remember what happened in Gaza last year around this time,” Josh starts.

“Hard to forget something like that,” the Congressman replies. “How’s Donna holding up?”

Josh pauses for a moment. He’s never talked to the Congressman about this before. “You know about what happened with Donna?”

“I’m a Marine, Josh. I know what goes on over there. I’m not a graduate of Harvard and Yale or anything, but I do okay.”

Josh rubs the back of his neck. “I wasn’t trying to imply —”

The Congressman smiles. “I’m kidding. I know about the situation with Donna – everyone does. But you seem surprised to hear that.”

“I — I’m sorry, I knew there were rumors around the Beltway about the two of us, but we never — I mean, nothing happened before then.” He pauses for a moment, processing the fact that he and his candidate seem to be having two separate conversations. “Are we referring to the same thing?” Josh asks, confused.

“Not right now, but I think we will be in the end.” The Congressman leans back in his chair, popping a pen cap on and off with his thumb. “I’m gonna hazard a guess that you weren’t exactly glued to C.J.’s briefings around that time.”

“I caught a few of the later ones after Donna went to sleep some nights, but… the footage, you know.”

The Congressman smiles. “You followed her to Germany. Then you took a leave of absence to take care of her. It was more than just water cooler gossip.”

“That bad, huh?” Josh had purposely stayed away from the coverage. This was for a few different reasons — between the repeated footage and discussions of the attacks, and the inevitable media speculation about Josh’s sudden disappearance, it would do more harm than good to stay on top of it. This also allowed him to focus on Donna, ensuring that she got the support and care she needed as she recovered. He was certain that CJ had given him the “rose colored glasses” version of the need to know information, particularly about the chatter surrounding his and Donna’s relationship.

When Donna woke up from her surgery, Josh had decided that he was going to take a leave of absence to be with her while she recovered. If this wasn’t well received by the President or Leo, he would resign, but thankfully they supported him without hestitation. When asked for ideas on someone to take Josh’s place during his absence, there was only one logical choice: Sam Seaborn.

Josh knew that the changes made to the Senior Staff in a time of turmoil ruffled a lot of feathers, and that there was certainly talk of his relationship with Donna. But he had largely checked out of the conversation, knowing that it wouldn’t do him or Donna any good to latch on.

“No, actually. It could have been. But CJ and the team took the ball and ran with it. Donna was the survivor of a terrorist attack, you were shot at Rosslyn, and ‘if this is how we treat people who sacrifice for this country then we need to re-examine our priorities’,” Congresman Santos recites.

Josh smiles. The wording was surely approved by Leo, Toby, and the President, but the sentiment was all CJ. “Made them seem insensitive,” Josh says knowingly.

“It’s genius, really. You think CJ Cregg will want to work for us?”

Josh laughs. “I doubt it.”

“It’s one thing if everybody hates your guts,” Santos teases. “But Donna is — well, Donna’s special.”

Josh knows exactly what Santos means when he says special, with a certain amount of reverence in his tone. It’s the same tone President Bartlet uses when he calls her Donnatella, when Leo reminds Josh that Donna’s a good girl. It’s the same tone his mother has always used when she gushed about her, the way she now calls her our Donna. The people who know Donna well know exactly how amazing she is.

“Yeah,” Josh agrees. “She is.”

“I mean, she’s an incredible politician, Josh, and she’s a kind-hearted person. But you know this showed everyone who didn’t already know exactly how tough she is.”

Donna’s recovery had been a difficult one, physically and emotionally. She spent a little while in Landstuhl until she was stable, and upon her return to the states, she started physical therapy. As Donna began to focus on her physical recovery, it became clear that she would need to spend some time working on her emotional recovery as well. It was Josh, along with a little help from Andy Wyatt and Commander Kate Harper, who nudged her into finding support with a therapist.

While CJ had run a lot of interference, Donna had been approached several times about telling her story. While she declined to speak publicly about what happened to her, it wasn’t exactly a secret that she had struggled. Some people were more aware of the specifics than others, but everyone knew that Donna had experienced something traumatic and life-changing. Despite Josh’s distance from the White House, Donna’s situation prompted a lot of people to check in on her through Josh. He’d given everyone the same answer, the one he’d heard Donna give a thousand times before as the polite version of the truth: she’s taking it one day at a time.

As Donna made strides in her recovery, one thing became clear: she was given a second chance, and she wanted to make the most of it. For a little while, she wrestled with what that meant, what making the most of it looked like, personally and professionally. Professionally, she decided it was time to move on from the White House.

Around the same time, Leo had paid Josh and Donna a visit. The clock was ticking on Josh’s leave of absence, and Josh had assumed that Leo would be eager to have him back. But Leo had other plans.

It’s time for you to pick a guy, Leo had said. Josh could practically hear the gears turning in Donna’s brain. Donna had come up with a mental short list before Leo had even left the apartment, and they’d finalized their choice before the night was over. Josh and Donna flew to Houston, and the rest was history.

“And the wedding was all it took for anyone who wasn’t on board yet to get there,” the Congressman says. “Including my wife. She was pissed at me, and you for that matter, until she sat down with Donna.”

“Well, I gotta admit, Congressman, that surprises me. She’s never been my biggest fan.”

The Congressman smiles. “She’s come around. Mostly because she’s a big fan of Donna’s.”

Their intimate Rose Garden wedding and their one interview about their love story had made waves, dominating the news cycle for what felt like weeks. Donna must have told her some of the things they didn’t share with the world. He’ll have to ask her about that someday. Josh twists his wedding ring around his finger. “Well, given that you two are fans of hers, I was wondering if we could take tomorrow morning —”

Santos waves a hand. “Take a couple of days. Meet us in — where are we going to be on Tuesday?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Josh admits. “But we don’t —”

“Be with your wife, Josh. Take a few days. We’ll see you Tuesday.” Santos stands and heads toward the door, a sign that his is the final word on the subject.

They part ways with the campaign after a gala that evening. As soon as they walk through the door, Josh can see the exhaustion settle in Donna’s features. Instead of their usual post-formal event ritual of I have been wanting to touch you like this all night sex followed by a shared shower and sleep, Josh helps her carefully undress and take one of her sleeping pills. Then, he tucks her into bed and crawls in with her, holding her as her breathing evens out.

The next morning, he opens his eyes to sunshine peeking through the bedroom curtains. He turns over to find that Donna isn’t there, and an immediate spike of anxiety courses through him for a moment. Then, he hears the muffled but familiar sound of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins coming from the living room, singing A Spoonful of Sugar.

Josh stretches and pads down the hallway toward the living room. He stops short at the sight of her, wearing a faded Wesleyan t-shirt and a pair of exercise pants, her hair pulled into a braid and draped over her shoulder. Her legs are stretched out in front of her, toward the opposite end of the couch.

The tray table Josh used during his recovery after Rosslyn is situated over her legs, and Josh can see Donna’s colored pencils and her coloring book arranged on its surface. She’s got an orange pencil in one hand, a piece of a fresh blueberry muffin in the other, and her head and her toes move in time to the beat of the song. The light from the window glints off of her engagement ring and wedding band, flooding Josh with two distinct memories: one of him proposing to her in the operating room, desperate to cling to whatever hope he could that she would come back to him, and the other of a lazy afternoon several months later, in the kitchen in their shared home.

A few weeks after they’d returned to the states, Donna had informed Josh that while she still wanted to marry him, she wanted him to propose again. I’m going to say yes, she had said, holding his hands in hers and squeezing them gently. But when I look at this ring, I want to remember more than just the fear and the anxiety. The initial proposal was a part of their story, she’d said, and all she wanted to do was add to it, not erase it.

He’d raised his eyebrows. So you’re going to argue with me about the anniversary of the day I proposed to you now, too? he’d quipped.

Donna had simply shrugged. I think I’ve earned it, she’d said.

She’d more than earned it. Josh proposed to her again, this time in the middle of baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies, Donna having just scolded him for stealing some of the uncooked dough from the bowl. They were married a week later in a small ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

And now, he realizes she was right. He remembers her waking up and asking him where her ring was, the euphoria of Donna coming back to him safe and sound. But he also remembers that day in the kitchen, the flour dusted on her chin and above her eyebrow, her playfully trying to pull the bowl out of Josh’s reach, the way she’d flung her arms around him at the joy of being proposed to once again.

Josh doesn’t want to startle her, so he treads quietly. But she must sense his presence, because she pauses the movie and turns over her shoulder to look at him. “Good morning,” she says around a mouthful of muffin.

“Good morning,” he says, walking toward the couch. He bends down and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “You okay? I was worried when I woke up and you weren’t in bed.”

She shrugs. “I’m — I’m okay now. I sort of had that lingering sense of dread at about four, so I got up and got busy.”

He walks over to the couch, gently patting her leg to indicate that he wants her to move. She does, and places her tray on the floor, curling up against him with a contented sigh. Josh reaches up and tucks some hair behind her ear. “Has it been helpful?”

Everything she’s done this morning is a strategy Donna has utilized to get out ahead of some of the more difficult days: baking, coloring, watching a favorite movie. He can’t help but be concerned, given that he knows all too well what those days are like.

In response, she hums, as though she’s considering this. “Mostly. I think I feel even better now that you’re here, though.”

He can’t help the smile that spreads on his face. “I’m here as long as you’ll have me,” he says, repeating the promise he first made in a hospital room in Germany. He’s made it a thousand times since: on the tarmac at Andrews; in the parking lot of her physical therapist’s office; in the lobby of the White House as they walked hand in hand, ready to turn in their letters of resignation; in the dim lights of their bedroom after a nightmare; in the Rose Garden in front of all the people they love most.

And he’ll make it a million more times: backstage at the DNC as Matt Santos accepts the nomination for President; in a hospital room as she breathes through a contraction and squeezes his hand so hard he fears it might break; at three in the morning when their newborn refuses to sleep and Donna worries that she’s the worst mom in the world; when Donna’s up late writing a paper and wonders why she ever chose to go back to school; when their middle child is a moody teenager and has gone toe to toe with her mother for the fifth time in a week; when they dance together at their oldest’s wedding; when they’re both old and gray and he almost has to shout to make sure she hears him from just across the room.

But for now, he breaks off a piece of her muffin and pops it into his mouth, content to be here with her at this moment they almost didn’t have.