Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Donna
Spoilers: Everything up to Posse Comitatus, and it's all AU from there!
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Toby worries about what's wrong with Donna.
Author's Note: Written because when Sunny talks, I listen. Posted because when Sunny talks I listen. This is number five in the Tempting Fate series, the previous instalments of which can be found at the site. Sunny, find your ambition, inspiration, whatever's missing - now it's your turn again!

From his vantage point at the side of the stage, Toby had the perfect view of the President, giving the speech that he and Sam had worked so hard and so long on, the speech that hadn't been locked down until earlier that afternoon. The process had been long and arduous, all the more so when they knew what was at stake, knew that every television channel in America, hell, the world, would be showing this speech, or clips of it, that night, the next night, night after night, right up until the first Tuesday in November. The words that they'd been slaving over were the words that Josiah Bartlet would use to accept his party's nomination for President, and they had to be right, they had to be just so.

There was no way that anyone outside the President's inner circle would know that it had taken so long to write the speech; certainly one would never guess it from the delivery, which, even by the President's high standards, was inspired. Nor would one guess it from the reception that the crowd were giving him. Toby had lost count of the times that he'd been stopped for applause, even at points where they'd hadn't scheduled for applause.

The speech was a hit.

They were a hit.

It really should feel better than this, he realised with a sigh. After all, the response to the speech was great, there were going to be good write ups in the papers the next morning, they had their people on the convention floor ready to spin their hearts out to make sure of it. He was in New York, his home city, a place that he loved to get back to as often as possible. What's more, he was sharing the trip with the woman with whom he'd fallen in love.

He really should be in a better mood than this.

With a sigh, he shifted his gaze from the President to the backstage area, looking for the woman who had the power to lighten his mood, to brighten his day just by looking at him. It was still hard for him to believe sometimes, when he looked at the beautiful, vibrant, young Donna Moss, that she was in love with him. That she would choose to be with him. He was older than she was, he had one failed marriage behind him, he was a prickly mumbling cynical man who drank too much and ate all the wrong things and could be the most miserable person to be around.

Yet, for some unfathomable reason, that divine creature loved him.

He knew that it had been just as much a surprise to their friends and workmates as it had been to him. He'd long heard scuttlebutt about Josh's reaction to the "local gomers" that Donna dated, but he'd never seen him in action, not until the day that Josh arrived in to his office, interrogating him on his intentions towards Donna. It had amused Toby, the fact that Josh was all but shining a flashlight in his eyes, because after all, he and Donna hadn't even had a proper date at that point. That had happened later that same night, and if Toby had thought that the first interrogation from Josh was something else, then the second was even more serious, with Josh leaving him in no doubt that he wasn't screwing around, and that if Toby hurt Donna, then there'd be hell to pay. Toby thought that he detected more than a little jealousy in the younger man's voice, but he didn't say so to Josh, or to Donna, didn't want to tempt fate quite that much. At the time, he hadn't believed that if there were a choice between him and Josh that Donna would choose him.

Sam's reaction had been completely different. His deputy had taken it upon himself to be the protector of his and Donna's relationship, pulling Josh away, either physically or drawing him on to another subject when coming to blows looked likely. It had been he who'd given Toby the tickets to Miss Saigon for his and Donna's first date, and several times since Sam had come through with tickets for one event or another that he thought Donna might enjoy. Not that there had been much time for frivolity with the convention coming up, but every now and again, Toby liked the chance to give Donna a night out like a normal couple. He loved the way she would look at him when he took her someplace, even though she was as at home at his place in jeans and an old sweatshirt of his as she was at the Kennedy Centre. She always told him that she didn't care where he took her, just so long as she was with him. Every time he heard those words, he wondered what in the world he'd done to deserve her.

He'd thought that it might be more difficult, managing a relationship while managing the hell that was a re-election campaign, but strangely, it hadn't been. Both he and Donna put in long hours in the office, stumbling home together at all hours of the night or morning, sometimes making love, sometimes not, just falling asleep in one another's arms before waking up the next morning to start the same cycle all over again. They made time where they could, once or twice a week, where they had the evening to themselves, or at least part of it, and everyone in the West Wing knew better than to infringe upon those moments, unless something apocalyptic was taking place. The only one who'd been slow to learn that lesson was Bruno Gianelli, and having been on the receiving end of Toby's ire on that occasion, he wouldn't make the same mistake again. There were times when Toby worried that he wasn't spending enough time with Donna, that she would regret their relationship, that she would want more than he was able to give, but she understood perfectly the constraints of his job, because she shared them too.

No, work wasn't the problem.

Nor were the attitudes from people at work, not the people who knew them at any rate.

What wasn't as much a problem as an irritation was the attitudes of people who didn't know them, people who only saw them together once in a blue moon, people who substituted rumour for fact and circulated it as the latter. The same people who said that the only reason that Donna was dating Toby was that she wanted to be sure of keeping her job now that Josh had moved on and was dating Amy Gardner. Or that he'd pressured her into dating him, using his power, his prestige, to force her into his bed. The same people who whispered about the age difference, the religious difference, the fact that he'd been married before.

Those whispers bothered him from time to time, and usually it was Donna who talked him down, stopped him from physically shoving the words down the throat of whatever loser had uttered them. She had the uncanny ability to let it slide, to say and believe that those people didn't know them, or they wouldn't be saying those things, not to mention the uncanny ability to get him to believe that too.

No, those weren't the slurs that were weighing on his heart now.

What he was remembering now was the conversation that he'd overheard on the night before they'd left for New York. She'd been packing for both of them, and he'd been taking a shower, half-hoping that she'd join him, as she often did. When he heard the phone ring, the notion was swiftly put paid to, and his only hope was that neither one of them were going to have to go back to the office. He was exhausted, he knew she was too, and he knew that the next few days were only going to be more draining.

When she hadn't called him, he'd relaxed slightly, continuing his shower uninterrupted, but when he shut off the water, he could hear her side of the conversation clearly, all the more so because of her raised and upset voice.

"That's not true, and you know it!"

There were definite tears just under the surface, and he'd frowned as he'd dried himself off, eavesdropping unashamedly. If someone was upsetting Donna, then he wanted to know about it.

"It's not like that Mom…Mom, I've told you before, I won't listen to talk like that."

He'd winced when he heard the name, recalling all too clearly Donna's face as he'd sat on the couch beside her, holding her hand as she told her mother about the man that she was seeing. On that occasion, he'd been able to hear her mother's voice, tinny, echoing down from the other end of the line, and his stomach had been churning when he'd seen the look on Donna's face, the tears in her eyes. Her mother had known the name Toby Ziegler, could put a face to the name, and she didn't like the connection that she was making. He'd heard some of the comments that had come through the phone line that night, and he'd pried the rest out of Donna, who'd told him that her mother objected to all the things that he might have guessed - age, religion, the fact that he'd been married before, their respective positions in the White House, and several more that he would never have come up with in a million years.

He'd thought however, that Mrs Moss was coming around to the idea of them, slowly but surely, and Donna had never given him cause to think different.

Not until then.

"Don't call him that Mom, he is a good man. He is a good man, with a good heart, and I love him Mom…Mom…Mom?"

The last had been uttered in such a plaintive voice that something seemed to shift and break in his heart, and it had been all that he'd been able to do not to wrench open the door and go out there to her, to give her mother a piece of his mind. But he'd known that he couldn't do that, knew that this was something that she would want to handle on her own, something that she wouldn't let him know about. He didn't agree with it, didn't pretend to understand it, but it made sense to her, so he respected that.

No matter how much it cost him.

There was only silence after that, and he'd counted to a hundred twice before he'd come out of the bathroom, acting as if nothing unusual had just taken place. "Who was on the phone?" he'd asked her, and her back had been to him as she'd leaned over the suitcases, placing skirts and blouses into it with a practised hand, making sure each one was folded just so.

"No-one important," she'd said, and he'd pretended that he didn't hear the quiver in her voice. "Just Stephanie, wishing us luck for New York."

"That was nice of her," he'd observed, moving around the bed, and she'd looked up at him briefly, giving him a quick, fake, smile before going back to her packing. He hadn't commented on the redness of her eyes, hadn't objected when she was a little more passionate than usual that night, or when she held him just a little tighter than she normally did.

He hadn't said anything when she was noticeably quieter on the plane than she normally was, when nothing to do with the convention seemed to lift her spirits. Not that she was moping or anything close to it, because she was Donna Moss, and Donna Moss absolutely did not mope, but there was something different about her. Some indefinable spark was missing that made Donna Donna.

And he didn't know what he could do about it.

A quick scan of the backstage area had informed him that Donna wasn't anywhere in the immediate vicinity, and with a quick glance over his shoulder at the President, who was still holding the crowd in the palm of his hand, he went looking for her. He hadn't gone far though before he walked into CJ, whose eyes narrowed in suspicion at the sight of him. "Everything ok Toby?" she asked, her focus split between him, the President over his shoulder and the large press contingent milling around.

"Fine." Toby wasn't paying too much attention to her, still looking around for that familiar crown of blonde hair, but she grabbed his attention when she grabbed his elbow and shook him slightly.

"Toby, what's the matter?" There was concern in CJ's eyes now, and Toby had to admit that he couldn't blame her. He was well known for his total concentration during any Presidential speech, could often be found backstage, mouthing the words as the President spoke them, or uttering advice on delivery, especially during an event of this magnitude. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd actually left a speech like this, or not paid full attention, and CJ often made fun of him about it, hence her worry now.

"Nothing, really," he told her, but his tone of voice wouldn't have convinced Sam, let alone the shrewd Press Secretary, and he reached up to his forehead, rubbing his hand across it. "I was just…looking for Donna, that's all."

Now a frown crossed CJ's face. "What did you do?" The words were uttered with no anger, just a sense of utter certainty that he'd screwed up somehow, and that it was to have been expected, a tone that stung him more than he'd thought possible.

"I didn't do anything CJ!" His denial was louder than he'd intended, and more than a couple of heads swivelled in their direction. Seeing that, he took CJ by the elbow, found a quiet corner where they could talk undisturbed, shooting poisonous glances at staffers as they passed them to ensure it.

"Well," CJ said as they walked. "If you didn't do anything, I'd sure like to know what has her so upset. She didn't say a word to anyone on Air Force One, and that's not like Donna."

"I know." His words were a sigh, and he leaned against the wall with one shoulder, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "I overheard her on the phone the night before we left. She was talking to her mother."

That was all CJ needed to hear, and she closed her eyes as if in pain. "Oh, I can guess where this is heading. Go on."

"From Donna's end of the conversation, I can only gather that her mother's not too pleased about us seeing one another. I knew, of course, that she hadn't reacted well, but Donna led me to believe that she was coming around…"

CJ narrowed her eyes. "Did she lead you to believe that, or did you let yourself be led?" she asked shrewdly, and Toby had to admit to himself, though not to her, not out loud, that it was something of the latter. When CJ realised he wasn't going to speak, she continued with, "What did she say when you asked her about it?"

Toby shifted on his feet slightly. "Well…"

"Don't tell me!" CJ threw her hands up to Heaven. "You haven't talked to her about this?"

"No." The word was an ashamed whisper, because he knew he should have.

"Toby!" CJ's shriek had more heads turning towards them, and this time, he couldn't even find it in him to glower at them. "Why didn't you talk to her?" CJ demanded, and all he could do was shrug.

"I thought she'd want to handle it herself," he protested weakly, and CJ shook her head.

"She probably does Toby. But part of being in a relationship is being able to lean on the other person. Not having to be strong all by yourself, even if you want to be. Even if you don't want to admit that you need their help, their protection, if you're involved with someone, it comes as part of the deal."

She stopped talking then suddenly, tears in her eyes, blinking hard to keep them back, and Toby found himself studying the tips of his shoes so that he wouldn't have to look at the pain in his best friend's eyes, knowing that her words had been as much about her and Simon Donovan as about him and Donna. Toby and Donna had only begun dating at around the same time as the death threats had begun against CJ, their blossoming relationship being played out very much under the cloud of one of their own under threat. When Simon had been killed, he'd been in New York with CJ, and had held her hand during the plane ride home, had gone to her apartment with her until she'd thrown him out, telling him that she'd be fine. He'd gone to Donna's place then, knocked at the door, sure that she'd be fast asleep, ashamed that he was waking her, disturbing her rest, but needing to see her. He'd been surprised when she opened the door, clad in the same clothes she'd been wearing earlier that day, eyes red rimmed with tears, and the door had scarcely been closed before they were in one another's arms. They'd opened a bottle of scotch, made quite a dent in it before retiring to bed, and they'd just held one another all night long, alternatively weeping and comforting one another.

One of the decisions that they'd reached that night was that they would keep their relationship quiet around the office. Oh, they were doing that anyway, even though to most people it was an open secret. But they wouldn't publicise it in any way, and they certainly wouldn't bring it up in front of CJ, not unless she talked to them about it first. They were both all too aware of the attraction that existed between CJ and Simon, and knew how his death would affect her. Thus, they'd walked on eggshells around her as she worked her way through her feelings, and had been even more careful in the run-up to the convention, their first return to New York since that terrible night in May. Normally, Toby would have been delighted to be returning to the city where he'd grown up. However, between the speech, and the rigours of the convention, and his worries about CJ and Donna, he'd scarcely given it a second thought.

"You need to talk to her Toby." CJ's quiet words broke through his reverie.

He took a deep breath. "I don't know what to say," he finally breathed.

"Tell her that you love her," was CJ's first contribution, and he wanted to tell her that Donna already knew that. "Tell her that you'll always be there for her no matter what." He wanted to tell her that Donna would know that too, but he didn't. "Tell her that you can work through her mother's objections as long as you do it together. Hold her and tell her that everything's going to be all right."

With another deep breath, his right hand on his hip, his left rubbing his forehead, he closed his eyes, murmuring, "It's not as easy as saying the words."

"No." CJ's voice was quiet. "But the words, the promise? That's what counts Toby." He didn't open his eyes, but he heard her moving away from him. "She went down on to the floor," he heard her say. "She wanted to be down there when the speech was over."

Slowly he opened his eyes, without dropping his hand, and that was when something caught his eye, and he knew something he could do to make Donna feel better, something more than words.

With that in mind, he went out on to the floor.

Hundreds of dyed in the wool Democrats were on the floor of the Garden that night, all of whom wanted to talk to him, to congratulate him, to share a moment with the President's speechwriter. But Toby passed by them all, wanting only to see Donna. It was Ginger who finally pointed her out to him, and he made his way over to her, tapping her on the shoulder, enjoying the way her eyes widened, first with shock, then with happiness when she saw that it was him. There were tears in her eyes, on her cheeks, but there was a smile on her face as she wrapped an arm around his waist, returning her gaze to the President. "Isn't this amazing?" she said, having to shout above the din, the clamorous applause, and it was only that that Toby realised how close to the end of the speech the President was.

"I have a present for you." He had to speak right into her ear to be heard, and she turned eyes that were half-suspicious, half-curious on him, eyes that changed to fully suspicious when she saw what he was holding between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

A perfect circle of gold glittered in the convention lights.

He didn't miss the flicker of her eyes from the ring to the finger of his left hand, the finger where that ring had resided for more years than he cared to remember. Nor did he miss the dawning realisation in her eyes of what he had done.

It had come to him, as he'd noticed that ring for the first time in a long time, that he could hardly expect Donna's mother, or Donna come to that, to believe how serious he was about this relationship if he was still wearing a ring that had been a promise to honour a relationship with another woman. He'd kept that ring for years, for what reason he didn't know, but now he knew that he had the best reason in the world to take it off, and she was standing right in front of him.

"Toby…" Her lips formed the word, but he couldn't hear her voice over the noise, and he stepped closer to her, leaning right in so that she couldn't miss his next words.

"I love you Donnatella Moss, and only you. No matter what anyone thinks of me, or us…" Her eyes widened in horror, and he just nodded once, confirming that he knew, that they would talk about it later, but also that they could work it out together. " I'm no prize Donna, I know that. And everything your Mom said about me probably isn't too far off the mark…but I love you. It's going to be crazy around us for the next few weeks, but I need for you to know that. Do you?"

Tears were streaming down her face, and all she could do was nod.

"That's why I'm giving you this," he went on, pressing the ring into her palm. "You know all about my past…but you're my present, and my future. Will you take it?"

She might have said something else, but her words were drowned out by words he'd written himself, words that were spoken by a man they both held in the highest regard. "I accept your nomination for President of the United States!"

He didn't need to hear her response though. It was in the tightness of her arms around his neck, the shake of her shoulders, the press of her lips against his as they kissed for all to see on the middle of the convention floor, surrounded by cheering Democrats, a gentle rain of red white and blue balloons floating down around them. Toby knew that there were still problems that they would have to face, not least her parents, and the fact that this was going to take their open secret far out into the open, but that was for another time. For now, he was holding Donna, and that was all that mattered.