(no subject)
Title: Trifecta
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Donna, Ellie Bartlet, the rest of the gang
Rating: PG-13, or maybe T?
A/N: Set during season 2, to celebrate my favorite Donna moment ever. It's for emily1982, who asked for Ellie (or CJ), the mess room, chocolate cake, a thunder storm. This is my first ficathon story!
Summary: Why is Donna the only one not shocked to hell by the President's diagnosis? Because she already knows
JOSH: You told Donna?!
TOBY: Yeah...
JOSH: How'd she take it?
TOBY: If everybody out there takes it the way she did, we may be okay. If a few more people in here took it the way she did, that'd be all right, too.
JOSH: Was that for me?
TOBY: That was for me.
Ataxia: May 17, 2001
“Donna?!” Josh yelled, muffling his phone against one shoulder while trying to pull his overcoat onto the other, “Where’s my umbrella? I thought you said it wasn’t gonna rain?”
“Actually, I said the Navy Yard said it wasn’t gonna rain. And, being as you didn’t bring an umbrella with you this morning…” Donna breezed in with an armful of files and a mug of coffee, “it’s probably at home, in your hall closet.” She added the mug to the collection of cups on the desk.
“-Yes, hi. This is Josh Lyman, calling for-yeah, sure.” Josh was pacing, getting himself tangled in the phone cord, “I’ll hold.” Donna could hear Muzak playing on the other end of the line. Her boss reached for the newest mug, cradling the phone so that he had a hand free to flip through the folders she handed him. “It’s a good umbrella. Black. Manly. From Bow and Larkin of London. They’re umbrella-makers to the queen.” He finished with her files, fidgeted for a minute, started going back through the stack. “OK, send the Ritter file and that memo from Oversight to Sam. Everything else, just…whatever. Just hold it all for now.” He waved distractedly, sloshing coffee over the rim of his cup.
Donna raised her eyebrows. “People are waiting on this stuff, Josh. I keep getting calls from Sue Mackey from the Counsel’s Of-”
Josh spun around, spilling the contents of one file, knocking a pile off papers the desk. “People can keep waiting, until we’re damn well ready for them to move,” he said sharply, “And you can tell them as much.” Disgusted, he sets the dripping mug down. “Another thing. I don’t want you talking to Sue Mackey.”
“You want me to dodge calls from Counsel?!” Donna didn’t even bother to keep the astonishment out of her voice.
Josh dropped the empty file folder onto his desk and scrubbed his free hand through his hair. “What I want is for you to find my umbrella. It’s raining cats and dogs and other, bigger mammals-what’s an order of magnitude larger than a dog?-and I’ve got to walk to the Reyburn building and…Hello? Senator?” Josh’s whole demeanor changed. He smiled, his shoulders relaxed; Ritter couldn’t see him, of course, but somehow Josh’s confidence traveled through the phone line.
For the sake of appearances, Donna went to scan the bullpen. Josh’s umbrella was nowhere to be found. Not surprising because he hadn’t brought it with him, despite a weather forecast calling for spring thunderstorms. It was May in DC; what did he expect? Of course, Josh has been slightly off all week-slightly distracted: dropping things, spilling things, losing things. Not that the Deputy Chief of Staff has ever been the most organized of people, Donna knows, but he usually has a way of keeping everything coordinated. But this week? Memos getting lost, people missing each other, meetings running over. The day-to-day business that normally ran like clockwork had a glitch in it somewhere. The whole atmosphere of the West Wing was abnormally tense, it just showed worst on Josh. It always does: he’s like the Executive Branch’s official bellwether canary. Donna ducked back into the office. Her boss stood silhouetted against the rain-spattered window, staring at the gray sky. His coat, half on, half off, dragged along the floor. The file hung limply from one hand; the other still held the telephone receiver, the dial tone buzzing faint and annoying.
“Josh?”
He jumped, startled by her voice, tried to make it look like a shrug. “It’s really coming down out there, huh?” he said quietly. “Not gonna blow over anytime soon.”
“You wanna borrow my umbrella?” she offered, just as quietly.
He sighed, turning around to offer her a crooked little smile. “Does it have, like, Hello Kitty all over it?”
“It’s black.”
“From Bow and Larkin of London?”
“From Carlos, who runs the newspaper stand at the Federal Triangle metro stop,” Donna said flatly, ignoring his teasing tone. He didn’t have to tell her anything, but neither did she have to enjoy being left in the dark.
“Ok,” Josh said wearily, glancing back out the window. “Good. Thanks.” He turns back to the desk, the empty coffee mugs, the drifts of paper, the gordeon knot of the telephone cord. “God, what a mess.”
Donna waits until he’s gone before she slips back into the office. Josh specifically told her not to bother with the papers-“I’ll sort them when I get back”-but it’s not really the papers she’s looking at. So it’s not really a lie. An MRI film peeks from one of the spilled folders. Actually, all she can see is one glossy corner. It could be a radiograph picture of anything, Donna tells herself. A satellite picture. Or, well-no doubt there were lots of governmental reasons for taking totally innocent photos that looked like MRIs but weren’t.
She spends a good three minutes convincing herself that the MRI wasn’t an MRI. And then she gave up and started organizing the facts, beginning with the last time the White House had been permeated by this same sort of nervous energy, the sense of impending something.
Apraxia: January 28, 1998
It had rained the day of the President’s first State of the Union, too. Josh was bouncing off walls. Toby and Sam’s nerves were stretched like rubber bands about to snap. On top of it all, the President had decided to hold a reception following the speech. The First Lady, the Secret Service, and the White House Protocol Office had all explained that this was not usually done, but Bartlet would have none of it.
“We invite all these people,” he protested, referring to the guests who sat in the Presidential Box and to whom he would allude at scripted points of the speech-a Marine Corps officer, the social worker who founded New Orleans Reads, some ecologist from the Northwest-“the least we can do is feed them once they’re here.”
“There’s no stopping him when he decides to be hospitable,” the First Lady shrugged, washing her hands of the whole affair.
So arrangements had been made for a reception, and everything had been complicated by when the steady, late January rain had set in.
“It’s harder for security when everyone is wearing raincoats and hiding under umbrellas,” Josh had explained distractedly when Donna had commented on the West Wing’s oppressive and decidedly un-festive atmosphere. “Besides, the speech went to the TelePrompTer people this morning, so Sam and Toby have nothing to do but bite their fingernails and imagine misplaced commas-”
He held out his hand for the sheaf of new polling numbers and Donna had it ready for him. She’d been subtly buttering him up all week, trying to decide the most mature, professional way to…“Can I come?” Donna spit out, before she could change think better of it.
“Come where?” Josh had asked, his mind more than half on the memo in his hand.
“To the reception, Josh!”
That had stopped him, smack in the middle of Mrs. Landingham’s doorway. “You want to come to the State of the Union thing?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll be boring,” he warned. “No networking allowed. Gotta pretend we’re bipartisan and, you know, respectful of the opposition.”
“That’s fine. I think it would be a learning opportunity and a chance for me…” of course, now that she had her answer, she could suddenly remember the well-reasoned, convincing argument she had developed just for this occasion.
“Um. OK.” Josh’s gaze returned to his memo. “I’ll get somebody to put you on the list.”
“Great. Thanks.” Not knowing what else to say, Donna had turned to head back to the bullpen and nearly run into the President.
“Oh! Mr. President. I, uh, good morning, sir, I didn’t see you…”
“Good morning, Donnatella. Mrs. Landingham, would you put Ms. Donnatella Moss and Miss Eleanor Bartlet on the guest list for this evening?”
“Certainly Mr. President,” Mrs. Landingham replied.
“Ellie’s coming?” Josh said at the same time, sounding surprised.
“Her mother asked her to put in an appearance,” The President explained, looking at Josh-rather coldly, Donna thought. “Now, if you would excuse us,” he turned gallantly to Donna, “Josh has to explain why Iowans hate me.”
***
The reception had, as promised, been boring. Coming as it did immediately after a speech about bipartisanship, it would have been unseemly to talk about politics. And there is precious little else to talk about in a roomful of politicians. Everyone was on his or her best behavior: gracious, encouraging, skull-numbingly dull. The highlight of the evening had been the photo ops. For the first time since the Inauguration, the three Bartlet daughters were in the same room. The White House photographer, at least, was having a grand time.
As various conversational cliques swelled and parted, forming and reforming like figures in a kaleidoscope, Donna occasionally caught glimpses of the Bartlet girls. They were wedged into a corner table, Zoe in the middle, and seemed to be the only guests who were actually enjoying themselves.
“Stop! Oh my god, don’t say another word!” Donna heard Liz gasp between giggles. “I can't laugh anymore, my stomach hurts…” Liz swatted at Zoe, who had apparently been regaling her sisters with an account of the chaotic last-minute preparations for the State of the Union. Donna remembered Liz: the oldest Bartlet daughter had often entered the makeshift kitchen that was the Bartlet for American nerve center-to warm a baby’s bottle, to make coffee for over-worked volunteers-and ended up contributing some essential plank to the campaign platform. She had the family values contingent eating from her well-manicured hands. “Killer instincts,” Josh had remarked, with enough awe to make Donna feel suddenly (surprisingly) jealous. Liz’s secret service code-name was “Quincy,” like the presidential son of John Adams: she was their best shot at a Bartlet dynasty.
Zoe dodged the napkin and launched into another story. She was a born mimic and a natural performer. Donna didn’t know whether that was natural or acquired: after all, Zoe had become a minor celebrity at age 5 when her father had run for Congress the first time. The Bartlets’ stringent press policy could only do so much: there had been media coverage of Zoe’s first day of kindergarten, every birthday, every Christmas, her seventh-grade science fair project, her senior prom. Zoe had grown up with the attention, grown into it-there was no façade: she was exactly the sweet, self-possessed girl the cameras wanted her to be. She was the Administration’s one Kennedy-esque feature; in polls-and yes, there were approval ratings for the First Daughter-her numbers were invariably in the high 80s: America’s baby sister. Once, trying to sort out exactly how the Secret Service assigned code-names, Donna had asked if Zoe’s would change if the youngest Bartlet decided not to finish college. The agent had looked shocked at the suggestion: “Nothing is going to change; she’ll always be Bookbag!”
Ellie Bartlet, sitting on Zoe’s other side, didn’t have a code-name-or, at least, not one that Donna had ever heard used. Ellie hadn’t been around much during the campaign, something that had caused grumbling in the ranks. Not surprisingly, the same story that was sending Liz into gales of laughter got only a quiet, slightly mystified smile from Ellie, who didn’t know the cast of characters.
Zoe was wearing a vaguely Oriental-style dress-deep red with intricate gold figures-that would look smashing on TV. “Oh, yes, here we have Mata Hari,” the President had joked when Zoe and Ellie had stopped to wish him luck before taking their reserved seats in the Capitol balcony. “And I see you brought your duenna.” Ellie had submitted to a kiss on the forehead. It was true, though: she did look rather somber in an otherwise celebratory crowd. Her suit had a vaguely gothic cut, with a high neck and draping sleeves. Hard to find something dark that didn’t look funereal, Donna thought sympathetically; well she knew the trials of having fair hair and skin that wouldn’t tan. Donna had always done well on her nineteenth-century British literature exams: Ellie Bartlet, she thought, looked like the Lady of Shalott.
Josh wandered by at that moment, interrupting Donna’s observations. “Boring. Didn’t I tell you?” he moaned. Any event at without wheeling and dealing was pointless, as far as he was concerned. “Oooh.” Something across the room caught Josh’s attention. “Hey, I think that’s the prime minister of the Seychelles. Wanna go cause an international incident?”
“No. I would like another drink, however.” Donna said, averting a diplomatic crisis by sending Josh off to the bar with her empty champagne flute.
A young man from the diplomatic core slid up to her; he’d obviously observed her talking to Josh and thought she was higher up in the Administration than she really was. He was cute, though, with a darling English accent and she spent about ten minutes chatting about whether the rain would stop any time soon. Before long, the conversation turned to his titled relatives, his shooting holiday on the Welsh Marches, how much more it rained in England, how much better the rain was in England... While he was briefly distracted by a comment from some Representative’s wife, Donna scanned the room for an escape route: Josh had been drawn into an argument with Toby-her drink was a lost cause-Sam looked dead on his feet, CJ was chatting with Zoe.
“Hey, Donna.” said a voice at her elbow. Even before she turned, the accent-haiyh Dawhnah-identified the speaker as Ainsley Hayes, the new Republican hire in the Council’s Office.
“Hi, Ainsley. How are you settling in?” Donna said loudly. Then, more quietly, “Walk with me? Make it look important, matter of national security. I’m trying to avoid Boring J. Witherton-Hampshire-Smithjones, Esquire, over there.”
“I don’t know about national security, but my sources tell me there’s left-over chocolate cake in the Mess.” Ainsley whispered.
Donna smiled; Ainsley’s appetite had become a West Wing legend. “Well, I think that’s a potential threat that should definitely be explored, don’t you?”
“I serve at the pleasure of the President,” Ainsley said demurely, already leading the way out of the ballroom.
Freedom was in sight when Sam suddenly popped up next to them. “Ainsley? Uhm, hi, Donna. Could I borrow Ainsley for a minute? I wanted to run something…it’s about the Mercauter thing?” he stuttered his way into an explanation.
Donna knew about the Mercauter thing. She knew it could have waited until tomorrow, if Sam had wanted to wait. But it was his night of jubilee, so she gave Ainsley a gentle shove in his direction. “I’ll save you a slice,” she promised.
Donna slipped off her shoes before descending to the Mess. The stairs were precarious and the shoes were both brand new and utterly impractical: wrong for the weather, with asymmetrical straps that cut into her heel. Even as she’d bought them, Donna knew the shoes wouldn’t win any compliments: Josh was the only person who ever noticed shoes, and he never noticed hers.
The Mess was dark and so empty that Donna was halfway across the room before she realized she wasn’t alone. Ellie Bartlet apparently had even less tolerance for White House festivities than Josh. She was seated at one of the round tables under the mural of 1812 warships with a blanket of notebooks in front of her.
For a moment, Donna considered leaving the way she had come: she’d used up her nightly quotient of small talk. What was she going to say to Ellie? She’d only met the girl two or three times. Besides, talking with any of the Bartlet girls always made her feel a little like hired help. It wasn’t anything Donna could put her finger on, it was just…Zoe spoke Italian and Liz was the ideal working mother and Ellie, well, Johns Hopkins Medical School pretty much said it all. All on top of being the closest things to celebrities that Donna had ever met.
“Is there something wrong with you shoes?”
Donna suddenly realized that Ellie had spotted her, was talking to her, was staring at the silver sandals she was holding. Too late to beat a retreat. “Uhm, no. I just-uh, they’re new.” Donna said suddenly. Ellie looked confused, so she continued: “They don’t really fit. Blisters.” Donna wanted to bite her tongue; she was rambling and she knew it.
Ellie didn’t seem to notice, though. “Want a band-aid?” She asked, reaching under a textbook for her evening bag. She dumped the contents onto the already crowded table: coins, pens, post-it notes, keys, and-yes-a few band-aids. “Sorry.” She surveyed the mess, as though suddenly seeing it through Donna’s eyes. “I’m used to carrying a backpack.”
“No. That’s great. Thanks.” Donna took the proffered band-aid. Something about knowing that Ellie carried around just as much crap as the next girl made her seem slightly less mysterious. “Studying?” Donna looked at the MRI films spread out next to a textbook. Ellie just shrugged. Of course. Dumb question. Why can’t you say anything intelligent tonight? demanded a little voice in Donna’s head. “I guess I’d better let you get back to work then,” Donna stepped back from the table.
“No!” Ellie looked up quickly. “I’m just, you know, thinking. You can stay if you want.”
Donna didn’t want to stay, as a matter of fact, so she was pretty surprised to hear her own voice saying, “Actually, I think there might be some cake around here. Want some?”
It was not having siblings, Donna decided as she cut slices of Black Forest cake, that made her so uncomfortable around the Bartlets. Even though you almost never saw the family together, you always felt it was an uneven fight: three against one. The President and the First Lady often referred to their daughters as The Girls, one unit, indistinguishable. She’d never been part of anything so close-knit, and she wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. After all, her parents came from large, Catholic families: Donna had plenty of cousins. She remembered begging her parents for a younger brother, right up until the age where she’d learned about the birds and the bees. She’d imagined herself as a sort of Wendy, leading a herd of Lost Boys; oddly enough, she’d never really thought about sisters until recently.
Balancing two plates of cake, Donna plucked forks from a caddy by the sink. She remembered a night on the campaign trail when she’d persuaded Josh and Sam to go on one of the morning shows. “Are you sure you’re an only child?” CJ had laughed when the guys had meekly told her they would be delighted to attend any press event she thought fit. “You seem like you’ve spent years telling your brothers where to get off!” Donna had smiled and shaken her head: “No brothers. No sisters, either.” “Well,” CJ had turned back to the television, “no, I can’t imagine you with sisters.” At the time, Donna had chosen to take it as a compliment, seeing as CJ was the only girl in her family, too.
Barefoot, Donna padded back to Ellie, who looked particularly solitary sitting amidst the empty tables under that big mural.
“MRI,” Donna commented as she sat put down the plates. “See anything interesting?”
“It’s just a practice thing,” Ellie shuffled it away, as though embarrassed. “You know, match the picture with the disorder.” Then, as though remembering some lesson about being a good host, she promptly said, “Of course, not many people can tell an MRI from a CAT scan.”
“I used to have a boyfriend in medical school,” Donna offered. That brought another awkward pause, as Donna realized that she really, really didn’t want to talk about Dan. “What’s this one?” she picked up a film, randomly, just to keep the conversation going.
“That,” Ellie explained, “is the MRI for someone with Multiple Sclerosis. The bright spots,” she pointed with her fork, “are where the myelin surrounding the nerves is wearing away. Causing poor nerve conduction, which causes Charcot’s triad, the usual trifecta of symptoms: ataxia, apraxia, and tremors.”
Ellie spoke as calmly as if she were on grand rounds. She didn’t even have to look at the film; instead, she kept her eyes focused on Donna. And Donna looked back, thinking that there was something more curious than clinical in that expression. “Wow,” Donna remarked, finally.
Ellie blinked, as though Donna had suddenly appeared before her. “JFK had Addison’s Disease,” she said abruptly.
“Oh. That’s…too bad?” Donna wasn’t quite sure what the proper response was.
“And he was on some heavy-duty painkillers for a war injury. He was sick enough to receive the Last Rights twice. Before he was 40.” Ellie was slowly, methodically, dissecting her cake into crumbs. Her hair, heavy and thick, had tumbled out of its intricate braid and spread across her shoulders. Donna couldn’t make out her expression, but she sounded like she might cry. “Teddy Roosevelt was never supposed to live to adulthood. And let’s not get started on what FDR concealed about his health. And, and….and George Washington had smallpox, for crying out loud.”
“So did Lincoln.” Donna wasn’t quite sure where she picked up that particular fact, or why she’d remembered it, but Ellie looked impressed.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well,” Donna offered humbly, “it kind of pales in comparison to suspected Marfan syndrome. And that pesky fatal gunshot to the head.”
Ellie looked up and smiled. Donna felt suddenly, inexplicably, like she’d just passed a test, but then Ellie’s face went grim. “Marfan can cause a distended aorta: Lincoln could have dropped dead at any moment. He’d never get elected with that kind of a medical history today.”
“He barely got elected in 1860,” Donna joked, but this time Ellie didn’t smile.
“Does it matter, do you think?” She’d pushed away the decimated cake and was idly sifting through the papers in front of her, laying them out like playing cards. “Do you think poor health makes poor presidents?”
“I-I don’t know.” Donna wasn’t sure how a light conversation on presidential trivia had taken such a strange turn. “Health problems are a distraction, I’m guess. And if it’s something serious or chronic, then it could really destabilize the government. I guess…I suppose it would depend on the disease.”
Ellie looked up, then, tucking her hair behind her ear in what Donna could tell was a nervous habit. Maybe it was the hair, maybe it was the stark fluorescent wash of light from the single lamp, but she seemed impossibly young all of a sudden. “I’d’ve thought it would depend on the person.”
Now it was definitely the light: the single lit table in the dark room was suitable for a Stazi-style interrogation. “Uh, well, yeah,” Donna stammered, ashamed at having sounded so cold-blooded. “It’s just-”
“Would you be less likely to go see a movie if you knew the star were dying?” Ellie interrupted. “I mean, we always say that celebrities trade their privacy for popularity, but that’s because their job is based on personality.
“The President isn’t a movie star!” Donna burst out. “And maybe he shouldn’t be a moral leader, but he is. And there’s just so much he can’t say-about national security, about party policy-secrets that he has to keep ‘cause they aren’t really his to give away. So I think…yeah, I think when there is something he can tell us, something about himself that affects how he does the job, then-then, yes, he should tell the voters.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be like there weren’t precautions,” Ellie snapped. The calm detachment was gone, replaced by discernment and logic. Donna liked this Ellie better, argumentative, passionate, that's something she can work with. “The vice president, for instance. And the Speaker. There’s a whole hierarchy. You make it sound like the president is putting voters in danger just because he keeps personal information personal!”
Donna runs her hand through her hair. She feels the words boiling up inside of her, but she doesn’t know how to get them out. It’s just wrong! She wants to say, but one look at Ellie and she knows she’ll have to come up with something more articulate than that. “Trifecta is a political term, too,” Donna starts slowly. “Just-bear with me, OK,” she says, reading Ellie’s confused expression. “If, for instance, I moved the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee and appointed her to the Commission on Lobbying Reform, and then appointed her successor at Oversight.”
“How is that a trifecta? I count two people.”
“Because I would then find a new job for the person who had been the original head of the Lobbying Reform group.”
“Ok. That’s three. So what?”
“So it’s unethical is what!” Donna remembered how Toby had railed against the Majority Leader when he’d arranged something similar just last session. “I’d control three new positions and only have to fight one confirmation battle. Concealing information about a serious presidential health problem is the same kind of bait-and-switch: the president is the one elected to run the country, you can’t just appoint a substitute because the he’s out sick. You don’t get to do that in a democracy!”
“We’re a republic,” Ellie says, quietly. And she sounds so much like her father that Donna suddenly realizes she’s come perilously close to getting into a shouting match with the First Daughter. Over an obscure point of political etiquette, no less, something likely to remain irrelevant unless President Bartlet contracts a Lincoln-esque strain of smallpox.
“You’re right,” Donna concedes with as much grace as she can muster, “we’re a republic.”
Ellie examined the MRI scan, carefully aligning her fingers with the prints Donna had left. “No.” she said. “You’re right. But…” she looked up at Donna, “I’m just a little wrong.”
Donna felt, as she often did with the Bartlets, as though she were speaking a second language. But with Ellie, she thought she might be able to get a translation. Or she could have if they hadn’t been interrupted by Sam and Ainsley and Liz and Zoe, who came trouping down into the Mess.
“Els, you think too hard!” Zoe announced, seeing the tableful of textbooks.
“Less thinking, more wine!” Liz added.
“And cake!” Ainsley chimed in.
There weren’t any wine glasses, so Sam served champagne in coffee mugs, and Liz cut generous slices of cake for everyone. Donna left hers on the plate, though; maybe it was all the sugar, but she was beginning to feel a little sick. At some point, Zoe appeared with Charlie on her arm and they took over Donna’s table. Liz and Ainsley ended up in a heated debate over welfare mothers. Donna found herself seated next to fairly drunk Sam, watching Charlie and Zoe and Ellie. Well, really, Charlie and Zoe. Ellie ended up being the chaperone after all, but her expression implied that her mind was elsewhere, anyway. She really did look like the Lady of Shalott, Donna thought. She didn’t realize how much she'd had to drink until it occurred to her that she’d spoken that thought outloud. Sam, even drunker on champagne and exhaustion corrected her. “Nah,” he mumbled, his head on his arm, “They're all Lear’s daughters.”
Tremors: May 17, 2001
Donna has retreated to Josh’s desk; she sits with her head propped on her hand, her elbow resting on the cat mousepad she’d brought him last time she’d gone to Madison.
She doesn’t consider herself a fast thinker. After all, she works with people who routinely create international policy while walking from the coffee maker to the copy machine. So, compared to that-not a fast thinker, no. But a thorough one. Donna noticed little things-the carolers in the lobby, Senator Stackhouse’s missing grandson-and, gradually, layers of those little things formed a pattern. Symptoms that were characteristic of a particular disorder. And one in particular springs to mind.
But it’s not possible that the President has been sick-sick all this time-and no one knows about it. Which means that he’s either not sick. Or that he is, and there are other people keeping his secret. Lots of other people. It’s a big secret. Donna, who always thinks better with a pen in her hand, starts jotting a list of names: the First Lady, the Vice President, Leo-oh, god, Leo?-and if Leo, why not Toby? Why not Josh? No. Josh-Josh would tell her; if Josh knew, she would know. He had a terrible poker face.
“Hey? Donna?”
Donna’s head snaps up. “Hi, CJ. Josh isn’t here,” she says quickly, automatically. She blinks, trying to clear her head. “He’s meeting with Senator Ritten. About the tobacco lawsuit.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounds like it was coming from a great distance.
“Oh. Good that it stopped raining, then, huh?” CJ leans against the doorframe, smoothing the cover of the briefing book she’s holding. “Actually, I came to tell you-”
“Martin Connelly was here the other day.” Donna interrupts. She is suddenly not all that sure that she wants to hear what CJ has to say.
CJ looks confused. “Martin Connelly from Justice?”
“He said the tobacco companies have perpetrated a massive fraud by concealing vital health information from the American people,” Donna announces, all in one breath. And then, perversely, just to see what CJ will say: “Do you think that’s true?”
CJ’s expression doesn’t change; there is not the slightest flicker of response. “I’m sure that’s what Marty thinks is true.” Her voice is as cool and neutral as a news anchor’s. CJ, who had gotten into shouting matches in the hallways over riders in the budget, is neither surprised nor outraged by this alleged fraud. That’s the only proof that Donna needs.
“What was it you wanted to tell me?” Donna asks quietly.
“Not so much want to as need to.” CJ corrects with a strange little smile, “I’m headed to the briefing room, but Toby asked to see you in his office. As soon as you’re done here.” CJ casts a quick glance at the chaos that is Josh’s desk. Donna resists the urge to cover her list: after all, it’s not her secret. Yet.
“Uhm. OK.”
“OK, then.” CJ steps into the hallway, then turns back. “I’ll be in my office when you’re done.”
Donna stands up. She tears the page from its notebook, carefully, making sure not to leave any ragged edges. Then she tears it in half, in quarters, in eighths. She slides a folder off the desk, letting it fall to cover the edge of the photo film that may or may not be an MRI. On her way across the bullpen, she grabs a binder, wanting to look busy when she goes into Toby’s office, wanting to look like she’s spent the morning filing instead of figuring out the President’s secret. Lie. Secret, she tells herself, firmly. Gripping the binder also keeps her hands from shaking; tremors, she remembers, are one of Charcot’s triad of symptoms. Sitting in Toby’s office, waiting for him to tell her what she already knows, Donna notices that it has, in fact, stopped raining. Still, Josh was right: what a mess. And not going to blow over anytime soon.