Fic: Doubts
Title: Doubts
Genre: TWW (Josh-centric w/J/D and S/A understood)
Rating: G/PG
Spoilers: The whole shebang
Notes - I do not own these characters or their pasts. They are Sorkin's creations.
Prompt: 04.10
The Santos' first term is a bumpy ride for all involved. They give and take with Congress on new education legislation, finally passing a longer school year as Santos wanted but with fewer concessions to the Conservative Right than Josh likes to admit. Sam loses another fiancee but bounces back quickly when Ainsley is hired as Chief Council, despite her Republican affiliation. She wears that black dress that's almost backless to the first formal event, and he manages to stumble over every eloquent phrase he had planned to say.
But in the end, it is the change in Josh that surprises them all the most. To Donna, he is the soul mate she always knew he would be. They share moments of joy and sorrow - they marry the summer after the inauguration and manage to conceal her pregnancy until she's at 3 months. When she loses the baby after they're supposed to be in the clear, they are devastated, but the family pulls together around them and they survive another tragedy.
Josh's swagger has lessened. His sparkle has dimmed. Sam has become the bulldog in the White House; Josh slips into the roll of trusted adviser uneasily. The first time Santos signs a bill, he does so with the pen Josiah Bartlett sent to Josh from New Hampshire. Josh felt it only appropriate but he only tell his President it was Leo's.
The packaged arrived at the White House by special courier with the insignia of the President, and Josh is a little confused. Why would President Santos send him something when their offices are literally less than 10 feet from each other?
When he unwraps the simple pen case and a note falls out, he nearly misses it. The pen is an elegant mahogany that rests on royal blue satin in an old-fashioned leather case. The heavy, cream stationary that accompanies it harkens back to a more formal era and Josh reads the surprisingly simple message of a man who never understood the value of brevity.
Josh-
When Mrs. Landingham died, I lost not just a secretary - I lost a true and dear friend and trusted advisor. Among the simple things I missed were the pens she slyly slipped into my jacket pocket every morning. They were good pens - good weight, fine ink - they performed the heavy task of signing laws and orders well.
I know you still question your ability in an office you never thought you'd inhabit alone. But today, I am sending you this pen, a gift from my dear friend and trusted adviser, Leo McGarry, on the event of my election to the House of the Representatives many, many years ago, to remind you that not only are you ready for this but that we have faith in you to protect the legacy we laid and to build a stronger legacy of your own. Never doubt your heart. When you do doubt your brain and your staff, turn to the ones you love to help guide you through the night. They are your home. They have helped make you who you are.
Your friend,
Josiah Bartlett
The pen is the finest quality. President Santos nearly pockets it for his own use. But he watches the way Josh's eyes never leave the pen, even when it's lying on the blotter, unused, and he knows this pen is more than he's let on. Santos hopes that someday his trust in Josh is returned fully and that Josh will tell him the real story behind it.
As it is, only Sam and Donna are privy to President Bartlett's letter. Josh feels that the other staff wouldn't understand; Theirs was an administration that became a family and as is true of many families, loyalties run fierce and deep and can't be understood completely.
Josh uses the pen to sign his marriage license and his Ketubah. He uses it to write Donna notes and letters that he slips into her attache case and her legal text books when she goes back to school. He uses it to sign the witness line at Sam and Ainsley's wedding.
And every time he sits at the desk he will always consider Leo's, in the office he rearranged to mirror their first year in the White House, more than ten years ago now, and mutters to himself, "I just don't know..." while he drags his hands through his swiftly disappearing hair, he pulls out that pen and writes the President a letter. Over the years, he writes many letters to New Hampshire using that pen. When he's up at 3 AM because the baby won't sleep, he writes them to both the President and his doctor wife. When he's up at 4 AM because Kazahkstan is making him think he may never sleep again, he writes to the President, sends it off with a stamp and then pulls out a bound journal and writes to Leo. The President writes him back, and they pick up a mutually appreciated letter writing habit with the occasional post-scripts from their wives. Leo never writes back but Josh knows he's there, sitting in the stripped arm chair under the window with a tumbler of excellent scotch in his hand, guiding his protege through the fog.
Genre: TWW (Josh-centric w/J/D and S/A understood)
Rating: G/PG
Spoilers: The whole shebang
Notes - I do not own these characters or their pasts. They are Sorkin's creations.
Prompt: 04.10
The Santos' first term is a bumpy ride for all involved. They give and take with Congress on new education legislation, finally passing a longer school year as Santos wanted but with fewer concessions to the Conservative Right than Josh likes to admit. Sam loses another fiancee but bounces back quickly when Ainsley is hired as Chief Council, despite her Republican affiliation. She wears that black dress that's almost backless to the first formal event, and he manages to stumble over every eloquent phrase he had planned to say.
But in the end, it is the change in Josh that surprises them all the most. To Donna, he is the soul mate she always knew he would be. They share moments of joy and sorrow - they marry the summer after the inauguration and manage to conceal her pregnancy until she's at 3 months. When she loses the baby after they're supposed to be in the clear, they are devastated, but the family pulls together around them and they survive another tragedy.
Josh's swagger has lessened. His sparkle has dimmed. Sam has become the bulldog in the White House; Josh slips into the roll of trusted adviser uneasily. The first time Santos signs a bill, he does so with the pen Josiah Bartlett sent to Josh from New Hampshire. Josh felt it only appropriate but he only tell his President it was Leo's.
The packaged arrived at the White House by special courier with the insignia of the President, and Josh is a little confused. Why would President Santos send him something when their offices are literally less than 10 feet from each other?
When he unwraps the simple pen case and a note falls out, he nearly misses it. The pen is an elegant mahogany that rests on royal blue satin in an old-fashioned leather case. The heavy, cream stationary that accompanies it harkens back to a more formal era and Josh reads the surprisingly simple message of a man who never understood the value of brevity.
Josh-
When Mrs. Landingham died, I lost not just a secretary - I lost a true and dear friend and trusted advisor. Among the simple things I missed were the pens she slyly slipped into my jacket pocket every morning. They were good pens - good weight, fine ink - they performed the heavy task of signing laws and orders well.
I know you still question your ability in an office you never thought you'd inhabit alone. But today, I am sending you this pen, a gift from my dear friend and trusted adviser, Leo McGarry, on the event of my election to the House of the Representatives many, many years ago, to remind you that not only are you ready for this but that we have faith in you to protect the legacy we laid and to build a stronger legacy of your own. Never doubt your heart. When you do doubt your brain and your staff, turn to the ones you love to help guide you through the night. They are your home. They have helped make you who you are.
Your friend,
Josiah Bartlett
The pen is the finest quality. President Santos nearly pockets it for his own use. But he watches the way Josh's eyes never leave the pen, even when it's lying on the blotter, unused, and he knows this pen is more than he's let on. Santos hopes that someday his trust in Josh is returned fully and that Josh will tell him the real story behind it.
As it is, only Sam and Donna are privy to President Bartlett's letter. Josh feels that the other staff wouldn't understand; Theirs was an administration that became a family and as is true of many families, loyalties run fierce and deep and can't be understood completely.
Josh uses the pen to sign his marriage license and his Ketubah. He uses it to write Donna notes and letters that he slips into her attache case and her legal text books when she goes back to school. He uses it to sign the witness line at Sam and Ainsley's wedding.
And every time he sits at the desk he will always consider Leo's, in the office he rearranged to mirror their first year in the White House, more than ten years ago now, and mutters to himself, "I just don't know..." while he drags his hands through his swiftly disappearing hair, he pulls out that pen and writes the President a letter. Over the years, he writes many letters to New Hampshire using that pen. When he's up at 3 AM because the baby won't sleep, he writes them to both the President and his doctor wife. When he's up at 4 AM because Kazahkstan is making him think he may never sleep again, he writes to the President, sends it off with a stamp and then pulls out a bound journal and writes to Leo. The President writes him back, and they pick up a mutually appreciated letter writing habit with the occasional post-scripts from their wives. Leo never writes back but Josh knows he's there, sitting in the stripped arm chair under the window with a tumbler of excellent scotch in his hand, guiding his protege through the fog.