Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Donna
Spoilers: Everything to be safe
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: Donna's thoughts on the last night of the Bartlet Administration
Author's Note: Companion piece to I Thought It Would Be Me - second in the Expectations trilogy

To say that this has been an emotional day would be understating the matter somewhat.

After eight years of working in this building, in this city, it’s all over. Oh, we'll be back to visit. If Josh has his way, we might even be back here working under another President. I certainly wouldn't bet against him. But we'll never be as we are tonight, President Bartlet's Senior Staff and assistants. The team that pulled off a miracle eight years ago and a second one four years ago.

And tomorrow, it's all over. Tomorrow, President Elect John Hoynes will take the Oath of Office. We've spent the last few months handing over the reins to his staff; spent today and most of the last week cleaning out the offices, ready for them to take over.

Today was the last day that I drove to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, walked to my desk and began my day by bellowing at Josh, refusing for the millionth time to bring him coffee. Margaret and I spent most of the day in tears, hiding from our bosses for fear that they wouldn't understand, only to find at the end of the day that they understood all too well.

So tonight we're all here, in the Residence for the last time. President Bartlet - and I will still call him that, because he's still President; for the next few hours at any rate - insisted that he wanted it to be a celebration of our last eight years, of all the times that we've beaten the odds, and thus, he ordered us all not to wear our work clothes. Insisted that the women should dress up, and absolutely no black on anyone. So I'm wearing one of my favourite red dresses. It's modest enough to get away with wearing to the White House, but I know that it suits me, that it fits just right, and that it does amazing things to the man I love.

Amazing is right - he could hardly keep his hands off me on the way over here.

Nor can he stay away from me tonight. His arm has been around me, or his hand on the small of my back all night. The only time he's been away from me is when he's refilling our drinks, or when I've been to the ladies' room. And while some people might find that suffocating, I like it. Because believe it or not, I miss him when he's not there.

I never thought that I'd come to rely on him as much as I have; that I'd come to need him as much as I have. In fact, come to think on it, if I'd been laying odds on who I'd end up with nine years ago when I first met these people, he would have been the last person that I picked.

The first person I would have picked - for a long time the only person I would have picked - is standing across the room, staring at me. He's been doing that all night, and for a long time before that. And I try not to sigh when I see him, try not to let anyone see the pain in my eyes.

Don’t get me wrong. It's not that I'm still pining after Josh Lyman. Far from it. I'm happy with the man that I have; I love him dearly, and I still say that the happiest day of my life was the day that he asked me to marry him. Even if I do believe that the ring he gave me is just too much.

It's just that I'd be a lot happier if Josh wasn't miserable.

He was the first person that I met in the campaign office in Manchester. Met properly I mean. The first person that I really met was Margaret, who told me to make myself useful anywhere I looked like I was needed. So I was wandering around, and everyone looked so in control and busy; I didn't see how I could just go up to someone and say, "Hey, I'm Donna Moss, what can I do to help you?" And then I heard a ringing phone, and saw an unoccupied cubicle, with the messiest desk I've ever seen. So I answered the phone. Which kept on ringing so I kept on answering it.

And then Josh walked in, and the rest is history.

I don't know how I managed to talk him around, what made him change his mind about hiring me. Because I told him all about Doctor Freeride, and my lack of a degree, and he was all set to send me out the door. Somehow I knew that I couldn't let him do that, that this was where I was supposed to be, so I gave one last try at convincing him.

I remember looking up at him, looking into his eyes, and wonder of wonders, he gave in. Told me answer his phone and gave me his campaign ID.

From that day on, with the exception of those few weeks in spring that I prefer not to remember, I've been his assistant.

Only now can I admit that for a long time, I was in love with him. Hopelessly, completely, utterly and futilely in love with him.

I watched as he fumbled from one romance to the next. With Mandy…God, that was awful. The thought that she might be a permanent fixture in his life was enough to give me nightmares. The night that she dumped him, he went out with Sam and got disgustingly drunk, ostensibly because he was so devastated that she'd broken up with him. I've often wondered though whether that night was about consolation or celebration. I, on the other hand, had no such doubts as to my feelings. And if anyone else had doubts about my feelings, anyone who noticed Margaret dragging me to her car, probably cursing her sobriety as she attempted to silence my drunken renditions of "Ding Dong, the bitch is gone," pretty much put paid to them.

After Rosslyn…God, that was horrible. When Toby told me that Josh had been shot, I was so shocked that I just couldn't take it in. I kept wanting to wake up, for someone to tell me that it had all been a mistake. Standing in that room, looking down at the surgery going on, actually seeing Josh's heart, that strong heart that I loved so much, I literally felt like I was watching myself from somewhere far outside my body. I didn't cry until I left the hospital, when Margaret dragged me home on Leo's orders, and let me crash in her spare room. And crash is a literal word here. I was so afraid that I was going to lose him. I hadn't realised until then just how much I loved him.

For a while there, I thought that he might feel the same way about me. I mean, that book at Christmas, with the sweetest note I've ever read inside it? And the Correspondents' Dinner speech, where he told me he wouldn't stop for a beer?

We could have been something special.

That's when all the crap came down. The MS and the Congressional Hearings and the diary fiasco and the re-election campaign and Amy. CJ was being stalked, and Simon was killed, and Governor Ritchie was doing well in the polls. Josh was so busy taking care of business that I was left to take care of myself.

That didn't come out right. He was there for me. He was. But he had a hundred thousand more important things to think about than whether or not I was doing ok. And I knew that, and I understood that, and because I was in love with him, I accepted that. Which meant that for the first time ever in my life I think, I stood on my own two feet, without the slightest hint of a man in my life. Even Josh.

And when the votes were in and the election was called in our favour, I realised something.

That somewhere along the way, I'd got over Josh.

I don't know where, just like I can't pinpoint the exact time that I fell in love with him. But by the time Election Night 2002 rolled around, Josh Lyman wasn't the centre of my world anymore. I didn't worry about how my every move affected him; dating other men didn't seem like cheating on him any more. And I did date other men; there was just no-one serious. All of a sudden though, that didn't seem so bad any more. I was starting to realise that I didn't need a man by my side to be happy, to be fulfilled. I was single, and I was liking it.

Which of course, is when I noticed him.

It's strange how you can know someone for years, be even a little afraid of them, yet end up falling for them. At the start of the campaign, and for much of the first year, Toby Ziegler scared the living daylights out of me. I'd see him walking around, bellowing orders at someone, and I didn't know how Bonnie and Ginger put up with him. Mind you, they used to say the same of Josh and me. But every so often, we'd see a side of Toby that showed us he wasn't the gruff curmudgeon that we thought he was. Like that time that he organised the funeral of the homeless man who'd had his coat. Like when Ginger told me that he hugged her when he saw her after Rosslyn. When he told me about Josh in the waiting room at the hospital, and again when he told me about the President's MS. Both times, he was straightforward and direct, using the minimum of words, but I knew from his face how concerned he was for me, for how I'd take the news. He didn't know at the time how much I appreciated that restraint of his, because if someone had begun fawning all over me after telling me, I wouldn't have been able to take it.

Over the years, having seen that other side of him, Toby in full ranting mode didn't seem so scary to me. Although I still felt happy that I didn't have to work with him day in and day out. Until the Friday night that Josh was booked solid all night with meetings on the Hill and made me stay late until he got back. Not that I had anything better to do, but I still objected having to hang around the West Wing on a Friday night, on sheer principle if nothing else. I was walking through the communications bullpen when I saw Ginger, and I stopped dead when I saw her, before going straight over to her and asking her why she wasn't at home in her bed. Her nose was as red as her hair, her eyes were streaming, and there was a trashcan full of tissues beside her desk. She didn't belong anywhere near the West Wing, but she told me that Toby needed these papers typed up, and they had to be done by tonight. And I shook my head and dragged her into his office, where he sat scribbling on a yellow legal pad. He looked up at me when we walked in and said, "Can I help you Donna?"

"No," I told him. "But you can help Ginger by sending her home. She's not fit to be here."

"She's not?" He looked at Ginger then, probably really looking at her for the first time that day, and blinked in obvious surprise, his usual sangfroid vanishing. "Hey Ginger, you look terrible."

"Thanks," Ginger croaked.

"You got the thing finished?"

Ginger started to tell him no, but I interrupted. "I'll finish it for her. Josh is booked solid on the Hill, and anything I have to do for him can wait."

"Really?" Ginger asked.

"Sure. If that's ok with Toby?" I gave him a look that told him it had damn well better be ok with him, and he nodded hastily. "You should get a cab home - that's ok, right Toby?" Again, he saw the look I was giving him, and he nodded again.

Ginger took just enough time to tell me what the papers were about before disappearing home to bed, and I went back to my desk, finishing the typing as quickly as I could. There were a couple of interruptions, but I still got it finished just after nine o'clock, and Josh picked that moment to call me and tell me that he was going out for drinks with Congressman Skinner after their meeting and that I could head home. I made a snarky comment about how he couldn't have told me that before he took the meeting with the Congressman, and he had the grace to sound somewhat abashed when he replied to me.

I got my stuff together and headed back to Toby's office, dumping my coat and bag on Ginger's empty chair before I went in. I sat on the visitor's chair, waiting for him to finish reading it, and when he was finished, he nodded at me, and told me that it was fine. "Of course it is," I told him, grinning at him, and he smiled back at me.

"Thank you for doing that," he said.

"It's nothing," I replied as I stood. "You should take more notice of the assistants though…poor Ginger was struggling all day."

He nodded, his pen tapping absently against the table top. "Yeah." His gaze flickered to the clock. "You heading home now?"

"Yeah. Josh called and said he's not coming back, so I'll try to salvage something of my Friday night...takeout and a movie I think." I was already thinking of the takeout places in my neighbourhood, wondering which one would get the call tonight, so his next words came somewhat out of left field.

"You want to grab something someplace?"

"Excuse me?"

I must have looked at him like he'd grown a second head, because he laughed lightly. "I'm asking you if you'd like to get dinner someplace. Now. To say thank you for helping Ginger and me out."

I blinked, considering it, discovering that the idea was not without appeal. "Somewhere non-takeouty? With real knives and forks, that aren't plastic?"

He laughed again at that, standing up and pulling on his jacket. "There might even be tablecloths."

"Last of the big spenders," I teased, and we walked out of the office together.

We decided on the way out that we were in the mood for Italian, and I followed him to this place that he knew, and we had a nice dinner together. Actually, we had a very nice dinner together. We talked non-stop, hardly a record for me, but I'd never have thought that Toby and I would have so much to say to each other. It was mostly work-related at first, but then we branched out into more personal stuff, things that we did in our spare time, our favourite eating places, college stories, stuff like that. The night flew by, and when we left, he wanted to drive home behind me, to check that I got home ok. I protested, telling him that he lived in the opposite direction to me, which he did. But he wouldn't take no for an answer, eventually compromising, telling me that he'd call when he got home, to make sure that I was home too, and that he'd keep trying until he talked to me.

And he did. There were two messages on the machine when I got home. So I called him back, and we talked for a couple of minutes before I hung up. I went to sleep smiling that night, feeling happier than I'd felt in a long time.

The next day was Saturday, but since when has that meant anything at the White House? I was there from early; he wasn't. He never comes in early on Saturdays, he always goes to temple first. And I didn't expect to see him, until a shadow fell across my desk, and I looked up to see him there. "I had a good time last night," he told me, and he looked so awkward that it put me at ease, and I was able to smile at him, and tell him truthfully that I did too. And that made him smile. "Want to do it again some time?" he asked. And I told him that I'd love to.

People always ask me, especially people who work in the White House and know Toby, what it's like to date him. And I always answer the same way - it's quite an experience. First of all, he's a true gentleman, who knows how to treat a girl, believing that the little things are important. And he's never raised his voice to me, ever. And I never worry how important I am to him, ever. He never makes me question myself, or him, and that's a nice change for me.

He never had to tell me that we had to keep whatever it was between us quiet. I knew that well enough. But I don't think either one of us expected things to become as serious as they did. Not that it happened quickly mind you. As I said, Toby is a gentleman, and he acted like one. It was our fourth date before he kissed me, and even then, it was a peck on the cheek. I went home that night and complained to my room-mate that my brother kissed me like that. By the time of our ninth date, I'd had enough of old-fashioned courtly methods, and being the twenty-first century woman that I am, I kissed him properly.

Discovering, by the way, that there's really something to be said for this old-fashioned thing, because the kiss was worth the wait.

The same was true the first time that we spent the night together. I had to seduce him, not that he put up much resistance mind you. That night was the first time that I told him that I loved him. He kissed me, and told me that he loved me too; that he wasn't just saying it because we were in bed together, that he meant it.

After that, since we both knew where we stood with one another, we figured that the only thing left to do was to go public with it. Which meant telling the people that we worked with first, most specifically CJ, or so I thought. Toby, however, thought otherwise.

"You need to tell Josh," he told me.

I was sitting at his table in his kitchen, and it's a good job I hadn't taken a sip of the coffee he'd handed me, because he would have ended up wearing it. "Why?" I asked. I mean, obviously, I knew I'd have to tell Josh sometime, but I didn't see why I had to tell him first, before anyone else.

"Because he's in love with you."

The last time Toby used that tone of voice with me was when he told me about the President. The time before, it was when he told me about Josh at Rosslyn. And both times, the news affected me the same way as this did. I was so shocked that I could hardly speak. "What?" I managed.

He reached across the table and took my hand, the contact making me feel slightly better. "He's in love with you," he repeated simply. "I think he has been for a long time, but he's only recently realised it. Just like I know that you were in love with him." I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head. "I know that you're not anymore. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here with me now. I know that. But I also know that you did care about Josh, more than you ever let on to anyone. And you need to take all that into account when you talk to him."

I was shocked. And I was convinced he was wrong. Convinced of it. Until I went into work that day, and observed Josh. Really observed him, really looked at him, and discovered that he was looking at me the way I used to look at him. I realised that Toby was right, about so many things, and I could feel my heart sink, because telling Josh was always going to be hard, and this just made it even harder.

So I waited until the end of the day, and I went into his office and told him that I had to talk to him. I sat in the visitor's chair, clenching my knees together to stop them shaking, laying my joined hands on my lap to stop them fidgeting with them. "I've got something to tell you. And I want you to hear me out, and not freak out or anything like that."

He quirked an eyebrow at me, and that smirk that he gets came onto his face, and I could just feel him getting ready to snark me as he leaned back in his chair. "Freak out? Me?"

I couldn't take that, couldn't handle him being normal, not with what I was about to tell him. There was more than a hint of desperation in my voice when I said, "Could you not…be, you know, you for a second?" I almost winced when I realised what I'd said, that I was echoing my words of years past, the night that I told him that I wouldn't stop for red lights if he was in an accident, the night that he told me that if I were in an accident he wouldn't stop for a beer. There was also a slight echo of my words when he gave me that book that Christmas. That's not what I wanted to be thinking of now, those days when I was in love with him, when I would have done anything for him. Not when he was looking at me the way that he was looking at me right then; as if he'd do anything for me.

He was leaning forward, hands joined on the desk, his expression worried. "OK. Talk to me."

I've always been good at talking to him. So taking a deep breath, that's just what I did. "I've been seeing someone. It's been going on for a little over seven months now. And it's not something that I expected to happen…I mean, you know the hours that we work here, and I'd pretty much thought that I'd be putting my social life on hold for the next however many months, but things happen, you know, and sometimes things happen that you don't expect, and this is one of them, and I don't know how you're going to react, but I'm hoping that you'll be happy for me…for both of us."

He was silent as I spoke, and I thanked my lucky stars for that, because if he'd interrupted me, I'm not sure what I would have done. Probably burst into tears or something equally embarrassing. "So…" he said eventually "This…it's serious?"

That's the first time that anyone had ever asked me that question, and thinking of Toby, I couldn't help but smile, blushing as I remembered just how serious we were. "Yes," I told him, looking down at my hands, because I couldn't look at him when I was telling him this. "Yes, it's serious."

I wasn't sure how he'd react, but he kept his voice quiet when he said "I'm happy for you."

I could feel the tension rush out of my shoulders, along with all the breath in my body.

"You don't know what that means to me."

"So…" He smiled slightly, tapping his hands against the table. "When do I get to meet him?"

That was the question that I was dreading. I'd just hoped that I'd get a little time to enjoy the relief first. I could feel my smile falter. "Josh…"

That's probably when he knew. He knows my face, he knew that there was something I wasn't telling him. And Josh being Josh, he jumped to the obvious conclusion. "He's someone from work isn't he?"

I nodded, because I couldn't speak.

"Who?"

"Toby."

There was a second of silence. Then it came. "Toby? Toby Ziegler Toby? That Toby?"

I could sense an explosion coming, and I began talking again to try to calm him down, to try to make him understand. "I know it's a surprise to you Josh…it surprised us too. We didn't want it to happen, we didn't go looking for it…but it's happened. And it's serious. Josh…I love him."

"Does he feel the same?"

Tears had come into my eyes at some point during that speech, and if I'd said anything else, I would have broken down. So I just nodded. And he stood up, came around the side of the desk and stood beside me. That's when he hugged me and whispered in my ear, "I'm happy for you Donnatella."

I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a couple of tears when I hugged him back, but I was smiling too.

I had some stuff to finish off after that, and was at my desk when he went to see Sam, telling me as he left that they were going out. Ordinarily he would have asked me if I wanted to come, but for obvious reasons, that didn't happen that night. I gave them a five-minute head start before I went to Toby's office. The bullpen was deserted, but the lights were still on in his office, and I knew that he was waiting for me. I got into his office and shut the door, and by the time I turned around, he was out from behind his desk and coming over to me. "How did it go?" he asked me.

I wanted to tell him that I was fine, that Josh had taken it better than I'd thought, but I was shaking all of a sudden, and I just wanted him to hold me. He knew that from the look on my face, and that's just what he did, and I cried into his shoulder, because I couldn't help it.

When I talked to him after I calmed down a bit, I could see the effort that it was taking for him not to go after Josh and drag what he'd said out of him. He didn't believe me at first when I told him that he'd taken it well, couldn't figure out why I was so upset. Until I told him about the look on Josh's face, that he had been right all along. And that I was happy with him, and I wanted to be with him, but I hated having to hurt Josh. So he kissed the top of my head and took me home, and spoiled me for the night to make me feel better.

I heard the next day that Josh and Sam had been out the night before, and didn't need to ask the reason for that particular excursion. Not when I saw the way that Josh was looking - I could tell at a glance that his sensitive system had been taken to the limit and beyond. The looks that Sam was giving Toby and me were also a huge clue. That was also the day that Carol told me that there had been a huge screaming match between Toby and CJ, and that she didn't know what it was about, and she was wildly curious. I just nodded and went back to my sandwich, because I knew all too well what it was all about.

A week later, so did the entire West Wing, because we told everyone about us. Or it just leaked out naturally, I've never been sure which. The press didn't get a hold of it until we went public a month after that. Toby had to go to a benefit for the Childhood Leukaemia Foundation, and took me with him. There were cameras there, and I was so nervous, because I knew the storm that would erupt the next day, but he just put his arm around me when we walked in, stayed beside me all night, and the next morning when we came to work, we walked in together with hands joined and heads held high. CJ fielded the questions beautifully at her briefing, and gave Danny access for an exclusive, and between the two of them, there was such a romantic picture painted of our relationship that I hardly recognised us. But the press pretty much left us alone, so I can't complain too much.

It was like that for the rest of the Administration. Toby and I have been pretty much living together for the past year, and we've been so happy that I hardly knew myself. I used to keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to come to his senses, to find someone better, smarter, more his equal. No matter how many times he told me that he loved me, there was always some little part of me that believed that it wouldn't last.

Then we got near to the end of the Administration, nearer and nearer to Election Day. People started lining up job offers for January, began to make plans for what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. I knew that plenty of big name universities were trying to recruit Toby, but he didn't talk about it much with me. Not until two nights before Election Day. We were at his place and he sat me down, very seriously, and told me that we needed to talk. I started shaking the second that he said that, sure that the day I'd been dreading had finally come, but he took my hand and gave me a smile, and told me that he'd got a job offer from NYU. "It's a good offer Donna," he told me, and I knew from things he'd said before that he wanted to go back home to New York, at least for a little while. His dad had a stroke last year, and it made him realise just how little contact he's had with his family since the President took office. "And I'd very much like to take it."

I could feel tears coming into my eyes, but I smiled at him, nodding, trying not to let him see that my heart was breaking. "Then you should go," I told him.

My eyes were lowered because I could hardly look at him, and he dipped his head, trying to meet my gaze, and when that failed, he tilted my chin up so that I couldn't but look at him, couldn't miss the smile on his face. "So you've no objections to living in New York? There's any number of good schools where you can finish your degree, and if all else fails, I'm sure I'll have some pull with the folks at NYU…" I must have look as surprised as I felt, because he chuckled as he squeezed my hand. "You didn't think I was going to go without you, did you?"

The tears were overflowing by this point, but the smile on my face was so wide that it actually hurt. "You want me to go to New York with you?"

"Of course I do. But." There was a pause. "I want you to come as my wife."

While I was trying to digest that, he took a box out of his pocket, a small, square jewellery box. When he opened it up, there was a diamond ring there, just the kind of ring that I would have imagined in my wildest dreams. For one of the first times in my life, I was literally speechless. All I could do was stare at him with mouth open, tears rolling down my cheeks.

"Donna, will you marry me?"

It's a good job that "yes" is a one-syllable word, because that's all I was capable of as I threw myself into his arms.

We went into work the next day and told everyone, Josh first of all. He hugged me and told me that he was happy for us both, and shook Toby's hand, and we both pretended that we didn't see that he was hurting. We both pretended not to notice when Sam took him out and got him drunk that night, pretended not to notice his hangover the next morning.

For the last two months, we've been running around like crazy, tying up the loose ends of the Administration. And contrary to what Toby had planned when he proposed to me, I'm not going to New York as his wife. We couldn't have planned a wedding if we'd wanted to; there just wasn't enough time. So when we go to New York, we're not going to get married until after I graduate. Everyone's going to come out there; it's going to be quite the party. Josh has promised me that he's going to be there; he's even joked to me that he'll fight with my dad for the right to give me away. Toby's heard the plans that we're making for it and he wants to know why we just can't elope. And you know, the idea isn't totally without appeal. I don't care how we get married, or when or where or who's there.

Just so long as he is.

When I wandered into that campaign office in New Hampshire, I was looking for a job, for a place that I could belong. I never thought that I'd find someone to love there. I'd just left a long-term relationship; that was the last thing that I was looking for. And I got lucky. I found not just one, but two incredible men who I could love, and who loved me. How many people get to say that?

The other assistants always laugh when they remind me of how I felt about Toby at the start of the campaign, reminding me of how scared we all were of him. They remind me that they never thought I'd have ended up with him.

Neither did I. I guess life had other plans.

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