Pondering on a Pen
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Third Day Story, and everything up to it.
Notes: For Bekki… this has nothing to do with your prompt, but I can’t be the only person who saw that scene and thought of a particular movie!
He gave me a pen.
It’s a nice pen, a beautiful pen even, in a
beautiful lacquered wooden box. It’s going to look very nice in my pokey little
apartment, right beside the name plate that reads “Donna Moss, White House”
that I got when I represented the White House at a plank in
Nor is it just any old pen, oh no. This is
the pen that the Israeli Prime Minister used to sign the H in his name on a
piece of paper that’s going to secure peace in the
In years to come, I’ll tell my kids and my grandkids about this pen, and what it meant, and what it cost me. I’ll tell them about how what President Bartlet did and how it changed the world, and maybe, one day, I’ll be able to bring them to a peaceful Gaza, and thank God that they’ll never know anything like the violence that I saw.
It’s a nice thought, a nice daydream, but
I’m shocked out of it when I realise that when I picture those kids, I see
brown eyes and curly hair and dimples. And when I picture walking through
Which is crazy, I know. Because much as I might want that future, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen for Josh and me.
He gave me a pen.
I gave him my heart and he gave me a pen.
And as I sit at my desk, in my wheelchair,
and listen to Charlie talk about how close he is to graduating from