Rating: PG
Pairing: Josh/Donna, Toby/Donna
Spoilers: We'll say everything to be safe
Feedback: Is almost as nice as JS winning the Emmy
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: Josh's thoughts on the last night of the Bartlet Administration
Author's Note: First in a series of three…life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

I've spent most of the last eight years looking at her from across the room. I don't know why I expected this, our last night together in the White House to be any different.

And yet, it is.

She's across the room from me, looking resplendent in a long red dress that does amazing things to her figure. It clings in all the right places, but is still modest enough to be worn to a party like this, and I don't think I've ever seen her look better.

I don't think I've ever felt worse.

She looks happy, hard as that is for me to admit. She's talking to our friends, smiling and laughing, as she has been all night. And the only thing in the entire room, hell, maybe in the entire city of Washington D.C that's shining brighter than her smile is that diamond on her left hand. She was more than a little taken aback when he presented it to her; since it's obviously worth about two months of her pitiful salary, and it took her a while to get used to the idea of wearing it. But it's not gaudy, don't get me wrong, it's not ostentatious in any way. It's classy. Just like her.

And him, although it pains me to admit it.

I've known her for about nine years now. Ever since the day that she breezed into the campaign headquarters in Manchester and hired herself as my assistant.

I can see her there still, all business, trying to get the damn pen to work, turning to me and smiling, the smile faltering oh-so-slightly when she realised who I was. I thought she was just some dippy college kid who wanted to play at being a politician, until she followed me around the headquarters, telling me all about herself, talking me into hiring her. And I wasn't going to do it, really, absolutely not. This was a campaign for the Presidency I told her, not some place to find yourself and start over.

That's what she asked me, and then it hit me. Why not indeed? We were all there to start over. I'd left most of my Washington ties behind when I walked out on Hoynes. Sam had left Gage-Whitney, to be left shortly thereafter by Lisa. Toby was trying to make this his first ever winning campaign, and was still recovering from his divorce. For CJ, this was her first ever national campaign, having spent the last decade or so in public relations. Leo was running the campaign with a drive and zeal that I wouldn't have known he possessed, and I wasn't so sure that it wasn't part of some quest that he had to rebalance the cosmic scales for the kind of life he'd been living. And Governor Bartlet, as he was then, had the reputation of being a pretty crappy politician - no-one gave him a chance in the election.

We were all there to reinvent ourselves, to make a new life for ourselves. Why shouldn't she do the same?

Besides, when I looked into her eyes, there was something there. Some connection, something that made me know, not on an intellectual level, but on a bone deep instinctual level that I shouldn’t let her walk out of my life. That we were going to be very important to each other.

So I handed her my campaign badge and told her to answer the phone.

That was the start of us.

Ever since that day, she's been by my side. In good times, and God knows, it didn't seem like there were that many of those. And she was there in bad times, and God knows, we've had more than our fair share.

Eight years in this place…eight years of memories.

Her constant refusal to bring me coffee. Her insistence on trying to set me up with Joey Lucas. The bantering while we walked. Her snappy comebacks, the way she never let me away with a thing. The way that I could never imagine my days without her.

After Rosslyn, I don't know if I'd have recovered if it hadn't been for her taking care of me. She fed me, she cleaned my house, she kept everyone in the office away from me, she made sure that I did my physio, kept my meds in order. She ran my life for those few months with the same ruthless efficiency that she ran my office, and I don't think that I ever thanked her properly for that. I always thought she knew.

The Christmas after that, when I was diagnosed with PTSD, I remember walking out of the White House with her. Her arm through mine, my insistence that I didn't need a doctor, her insisting that I wasn't a doctor, so that therefore I should shut up. Listening to the carol singers, feeling myself being dragged back into the past, into the insanity of that night…then her gentle voice at my elbow, bringing me back to reality, taking me away from there, guiding me to her car.

Donna, guiding me away from the worst parts of myself…the theme of my life during the last eight years.

And after Mrs Landingham, after the MS announcement, she was there for me again. There for all of us really. Arranging the cots downstairs in the basement so that we could sleep. Listening to me talk, and rant, and not saying anything, just being supportive. Just being Donna.

The memory of the glance that I stole of her that Christmas Eve is one of the most cherished moments of my life. She'd hugged me when I gave her the book, moved by the note that I'd written inside it. And she'd asked me if skis would have killed me, and I'd told her yes. But I was having trouble speaking, mostly due to the feel of her in my arms, the smell of her hair, and yes, I do admit it, I did smell her hair. And I think she must have known how I felt because she just gave me a little grin and I went back to my office. But I came back out, just to see what she was doing. And she was rereading my note, with a beatific smile on her face.

I realised then that she had the most beautiful smile that I'd ever seen in my life.

It's the same smile that she's wearing now, and the sight of it is like a knife through my heart.

I don't know when my feelings for her started to change, or if they'd been like that from the start and I was too clueless to notice them. Or at least, CJ would say that I was clueless. In my own defence, I'd like to point out that I was fresh out of a workplace romance with Mandy when I met Donna, and that the last thing I wanted was to jump from the frying pan into the fire. I'd also like to point out the scandal that would have arisen had anything happened between Donna and me, a scandal that we absolutely could not have afforded on top of everything else that happened to us during our tenure here. Add to that the fact that Donna acted like I was a royal pain in the ass most of the time, and tried on numerous occasions to set me up with other women, Joey Lucas for example?

Who did point out to me that Donna was trying to cover herself with misdirection.

I told her that she was wrong.

OK, so maybe I was a little bit clueless.

So yeah, maybe the romantic thing was there from the start. There were definitely feelings there by the Christmas that I gave her the book. And when she was helping me to recuperate, we got closer then. But I was still recovering, still not myself. Even if I'd wanted to, even if she'd wanted to, nothing could have happened then.

I didn't do anything even after Joey gave me her 100 Donnas speech.

I sent her flowers for our anniversary.

Which didn't go down well with her.

I had my reasons for choosing to celebrate that anniversary. Which I explained to her. That that was the time that she came to work for me and didn't leave me. That it was the time that she stayed.

And she explained the reasons that she didn't like to be reminded of it. Because she did leave, and she left for a jackass who didn't deserve her, and it was a mistake for her. And she didn't like to be reminded of that mistake, didn't like to remember the girl that she'd been then, who believed that he'd change.

There was something about her face when she said that, something sad, something that I couldn't quite read. And the way that it was phrased, the way that she was comparing me with her ex-boyfriend…

It was leading us in directions that I didn't think we should be going that close to the Oval Office. So I did my best to diffuse the situation.

Which I wouldn't. If she were in an accident, I wouldn't rest until I was with her, until I could see that she was all right, until I was holding her in my arms.

So you can see how that diffusing the situation thing worked out for me.

But that's ok because it didn't work for her either.

She said it nonchalantly, like it was no big deal. But I got this image of Donna on her way to the hospital after Rosslyn, wide eyed and terrified, not knowing if any of us were hurt, just knowing that we were all at GW, knowing that she had to get there.

Maybe something could have happened after that. If it hadn't been for the MS. If it hadn't been for the re-election campaign. If it hadn't been for the hearings. If it hadn't been for the diary thing. If it hadn't been for Amy.

So many what-ifs, and only one what-is.

What is is that Donna was miserable for a long time. We all were. But did I step in, offer to support her the way that she'd supported me? Well, I guess I did, to a certain extent. But not enough. Not the way that I should have.

We were all finding our own way to get through it, any way that we could. And for better or worse, Donna had to do it on her own.

And when we won re-election, I looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in months, and she wasn't the Donna that I'd known. She wasn't the Donna who'd breezed into the Manchester office and talked her way into my life. Nor was she the Donna who'd cried over an old book, who'd nursed me back to health, who'd damn near beat me around the West Wing with a vase of flowers.

She was different. Stronger, more confident, just as quick-witted. And still possessing that strong, strong heart of hers.

With one important difference.

Somewhere in the eighteen or so months between the MS announcement and the re-election victory, she got over me.

I say that now, can acknowledge that she once had feelings for me, because I look back and I see the signs that I missed, see how clueless I really was. Hindsight really is twenty-twenty.

And when I figured that out, I also realised too late how I felt about her, and I wasn't anywhere close to being over her.

One could almost be amused at this sudden role reversal of ours, if one was so inclined. However, any of our friends that knew, or had guessed what had happened weren't so inclined. And my feelings for Donna, or hers for me, were never discussed. Because after all, it didn't matter what they were. As long as we were filling the roles of boss and assistant in the White House, nothing could come of it.

But the knowledge of my feelings meant that I was more aware of everything that Donna did, every little nuance of her body language, every expression that crossed her face. So when the change came over her, I noticed it first. And people thought that I was exaggerating, that I was making things up, but I knew I wasn't. Not that she told me. Oh no, she's kept a close hold on her private life ever since midway through our first term. She never told me anything about the gomers that she was dating, except to tell me when she was leaving early.

So I didn't know a name. But I knew from the way that she was acting that this wasn't just any gomer. That this was different, that it was serious.

It's lucky that I'd come to that conclusion independently, because when she came to my office late one night and told me that she wanted to talk to me, I already had a pretty good idea what it was all about. Or so I thought.

She sat in the visitor's chair across from me, her hands on her knees, fingers interlaced. She looked nervous, more nervous than I'd seen her in a long time. "I've got something to tell you," she started. "And I want you to hear me out, and not freak out or anything like that."

I leaned back in my chair, intrigued. "Freak out? Me?" I grinned, but she didn't grin back. In fact, my insouciance only seemed to make her more nervous.

"Could you not…be, you know, you for a second?"

She couldn't have known, I realised, that she was echoing her words that night that we were in this very office, looking for a speech to recycle for the Correspondents' Dinner. Or that she was slightly echoing her words from the Christmas that I gave her that book. But the look on her face was more than nerves now, it was more like terror, and I found myself leaning forward on my chair, my hands on the desk. "OK." I was suddenly serious, all desire to tease her gone. "Talk to me."

"I've been seeing someone."

I felt the sudden impulse to beg her to shut up, but let her continue.

"It's been going on for a little over seven months now."

She knew exactly how long it was. No ballpark figures for my Donna. Except she wasn't my Donna anymore.

"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."

I don't think she drew breath in that sentence. That's quite something. She's quite something.

She's somebody else's quite something.

"So…" I endeavoured to speak past the lump in my throat. "This…it's serious?"

She blushed, looked down at her joined hands and smiled. She still had the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen in my life. "Yes. Yes, it's serious."

"I'm happy for you." I kept my voice low, hoping that she couldn't tell that I was lying through my teeth. She usually can; she knows me so well. But I guess there's a lot to be said for only hearing what you want to hear, because she smiled at me, and I swore that somewhere I could hear the sound of my heart breaking.

She let her breath out in a rush, shoulders visibly relaxing. "You don't know what that means to me," she said.

"So…" I started, when the silence threatened to go on for longer than I was comfortable with. "When do I get to meet him?"

Her smile faltered slightly, just slightly. So slightly that anyone else might have missed it, anyone but me. And something twisted deep down inside me. "Josh…"

That's when I knew.

"He's someone from work isn't he?"

My voice sounded normal. That was quite a surprise. And she nodded slowly.

"Who?"

And again with the normal.

"Toby."

Her voice was quiet too, and I honestly thought I'd misheard her. "Toby? Toby Ziegler Toby? That Toby?"

I could have tacked on any number of objections. The age difference, that fact that as far as I knew, he was still hung up on Andi, he'd been married once already, they worked together…I could go on. But I was so shocked that I literally couldn't speak, because of all the people that I ever thought Donna would be attracted to, Toby was never on the list. He was never anywhere close to the vicinity of the neighbourhood of being on the list.

"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." Her voice was pleading and so were her eyes as she leaned forward in her seat, pleading for understanding. "Josh…I love him."

I wanted to tell her that I loved her. That we should be together. But I looked into those eyes, heard that voice, those words, and I couldn't.

What came out instead was a question. "Does he feel the same?"

She just nodded, tears in her eyes. And I found myself standing, coming around the side of the desk to stand beside her. I looked down at her, and she stared up at me, just like she had in Manchester all those years ago.

And I bent down and I hugged her, whispering in her ear, "I'm happy for you Donnatella."

And she hugged me back, and the smile on her face when she went home to him was brighter than any sun.

She went to him that night. I went to Sam, told him everything. And he didn't believe me at first, until I told him all the details. Until he saw the look on my face. Then he took me out and we got shitfaced together.

And ever since then, I've been looking at the two of them together. They came out and told everyone else a couple of days after Donna told me, and everyone was happy for them. CJ helped them devise a strategy to spin the press with, and it worked like a charm. By the time the White House Press Corps was finished writing about the new relationship, it was like the second coming of Charles and Diana.

Except for the happy ending.

Because they're going to have it, I know they are. Because I've never seen her happier than when she's with him. And I've never seen him happier than when he's with her. He's relaxed, he's happy - he's like a different man.

She came to me the day before Election Day. Breezed into my office first thing in the morning. She even brought me coffee. And she told me then. That Toby had proposed to her the night before. And that she'd accepted. She showed me the ring, and I smiled at her and told her that it was beautiful and that I hoped they'd be happy. I ignored the sympathetic looks that CJ and Sam were shooting me all day, and Sam took me out and got me shitfaced again that night.

Which brings me to tonight. Our last night in the White House, our last party as the White House Senior Staff. There have been tears today, plenty of them. More than once I've caught Donna and Toby, arms around each other, or hand in hand, or just standing quietly talking to one another. They're going to New York together. He's going to lecture at NYU, and she's going back to school, studying Political Science. They're going to get married once Donna graduates…Toby even made a joke, saying that the honeymoon was going to be his graduation present to her. Donna followed that up by telling him that if he tried that, it'd be the shortest marriage on record.

As for me, I'm going to stay on in Washington. There's a number of Senators who are headhunting me, and I'm going to take my time, figuring out who I'm going to work for. Donna's made me promise that just because we're going to live in different cities doesn't mean that we're going to be strangers, and I've told her that there's no way I'm going to lose her in my life.

But I already have.

It's funny. I've spent the last few months hoping that today would never come. Because I don't want to lose her. I don't want her to move away, don’t want to spend my days without her. Yet on the other hand, I've been wishing for today, because it means I don't have to do what I'm doing now; stand across the room from her, looking at her with her arm around him, smiling up at him, loving him. I've been putting on my best face, and I've fooled most of the people. I've even fooled her, and it's a relief to know that I'm not going to have to do that anymore.

You see, I always thought that if she fell for anyone of the Senior Staff that it'd be me.

I guess I was wrong.

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