FF: In the Great White North
Title: In the Great White North
Author: Leli
Prompt: (#133) Josh/Donna - She was only Canadian for about half an hour, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to tease her about it.
Fandom: The West Wing
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Josh/Donna. Sam makes a brief appearance.
Warning: Nothing, really. Spoilers up to Swiss Diplomacy, I suppose.
Summary: Josh and Donna visit their neighbor to the North.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I profit from nothing. All characters are the creation and/or property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells, NBC and/or Warner Bros.
A/N: Thanks to caz963 for the beta.
A/N2: This takes place somewhere in the late fall of season four… just before Arctic Radar.
In the Great White North
(or Why We Don't Mess with Heisenberg)
“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and vice versa.”
- Werner Heisenberg, 1927
* * * * *
The sound of her ring-tone jolts her rudely out of sleep and Donna shakes her head to clear away the remnants of a half-remembered dream as she rolls towards her nightstand. She glances at the alarm clock and groans as she untangles the phone from the charger.
“… better be good, Josh,” she mumbles, her mind struggling to catch up with her body, which had answered her cellphone with the skillful motions of… well, someone who’s had way too much practice answering cellphone calls in the middle of the night.
“Good morning, Starshine!” He sounds much too awake to have been up all night. He must have slept some and then had time for a hot shower before he called her - which means that this isn’t an emergency. Or at least not a real emergency, like an unfavorable whip count or the threat of nuclear war. If it was something that urgent, he would have called her before he was even out of bed himself. Donna drags a hand over her face and struggles to formulate a coherent response.
“I swear, after sending me home less than four hours ago, you had better not be calling to tell me that the earth says hello,” she says, but her admonishment is half-hearted. She doesn’t need to see him to know that he’s smirking, thrilled that she’s going along with his joke. She had honestly done it without even thinking; she’s tuned to him even in her sleep, apparently - a thought she quickly pushes aside.
“But it does say hello, Donna,” he replies cheerfully.
“No, it says ‘Why, Joshua Lyman, are you awake at this ungodly hour?’” Donna mumbles, rolling onto her back and fighting the incredible weight of her eyelids.
His tone of voice changes and becomes less jovial. “So, there’s a thing," he says and suddenly it’s much easier to keep her eyes open.
"Good thing or bad thing?"
"Uh... bad for others, moderately inconvenient for us 'thing'. Apparently, there’s some problem with the words of welcome that we sent the new Israeli Foreign Minister.”
“I thought Toby was Leo’s point-man on that?” she says, her words distorted by a yawn.
“He is. And he’s been trying to get to the bottom of it all night, but apparently the new guy is being pretty... selective when it comes to who he’ll deal with. Not that he has anything against Toby; just that Yosef and Leo went way back and Dahan wants to cement former ties in order to maintain that type of relationship… or something like that. He says he’s more comfortable skipping the middle man.”
“I bet Toby loved that.”
“Ginger said he’s been close to losing it all night. He's holed up in his office with his Yankees cap and a glass of scotch, muttering about marginalization and the demise of fraternity. She won't give him any more coffee and she had Bonnie confiscate his balls out of fear he’d throw one right through the wall.”
Donna snorts at the double entendre then realizes that Josh has paused, apparently waiting for some response other than her amusement.
“Okay - well, this is all a very entertaining story, but why am I hearing it at,” she checks her clock again, “four twenty-six in the morning?”
“Leo’s coming back to deal with the Dahan thing.”
“And to calm Toby down before he does something to irrevocably insult the land of his forefathers?”
“Right, and that. So, Leo's headed back to D.C., which means that someone has to go help the President explore the beauty of the Great White North,” Josh says and a feeling of dread begins to leak into her stomach.
“Oh, God…” she murmurs.
“And that someone is us,” Josh finishes with a flourish.
“No, that someone is you, Cartier. Why do I have to go?”
"You don’t want to visit your ‘home and native land’?"
“Josh, I was Canadian for maybe an hour more than six months ago. It might be time to move on,” she says, pulling the comforter tighter around her body in a futile attempt to post-pone the inevitable.
“You really don’t want to go? Because you always complain about being left behind when I travel alone.”
“Yeah, but that’s when we talk about it during the day,” she explains. “This is the middle of the night. And besides, you’re going to Ottawa; it’s not exactly a scintillating travel destination.”
“I’m not hearing a lot of ‘true patriot love’ from you, Donna.”
“I can’t imagine why not - sleep deprivation usually brings out the loyalist in me.”
“Okay, fine. You can stay home if you want,” Josh says and Donna sits up in bed, suddenly wary.
“I can?” she asks doubtfully.
“Sure,” he replies. “In fact, to show you that I’m sorry for the ‘true patriot love’ crack, I’ll even bring you back something special. Something firmly rooted in Canadian history and native culture.”
“You will?” Donna asks, incredulous.
“Absolutely. Go back to sleep. Oh - and before I hang up, remind me -” he says, a smirk evident in his voice, “- you like moose, right?”
* * * * *
“Josh, no.”
They’re standing in his living room, dawn casting purple hues on their faces as they debate over the latest items Josh has tried to add to his packing. His predictably disorganized packing. Donna eyes the crumpled mound of boxer shorts, t-shirts, ties and files in Josh’s suitcase with open disapproval. She sifts through the pile, rescuing the ties from certain dishevelment and hanging them in the garment bag with his suits while Josh continues to plead his case for bringing the ridiculous-looking objects.
“Come on, we might need them.” He raises an eyebrow at her, obviously enjoying the absurdity of the conversation. In fact, she surmises, he probably wouldn’t have even brought the darn things out if they didn’t have an extra five minutes before the cab would be there. When he’s bored, Josh tends to make his own fun and the results are often disastrous. Just ask the guys who had to repair the smoke damage in the Mural Room...
“Josh, there is no way you’ll need them,” she responds patiently, “You do, however, need clean socks. Did you remember to pack those?”
“Of course I did.”
Donna glances at the bag skeptically. “Would you mind double-checking?”
“I’m fully capable of packing for myself, you know,” Josh says, glaring at her. She raises an eyebrow and he lets out an exaggerated sigh, then begins to rummage through his clothes. “I swear, there are socks in here… somewhere…”
After several moments of fruitless searching, a crease forms across Josh’s forehead and he heads back into the bedroom, presumably to search out a few clean pairs. Donna smiles to herself as she watches him leave the room, her eyes lingering on one attribute in particular. Usually, she’s walking along side him, so it’s not as often as she’d like that she gets to enjoy the benefits of his quick stride. As he turns into his room, she returns her attention to the items on the table.
“Josh? I’m putting these back in the closet, okay?”
“I’m just sayin’, they could come in handy.” He comes back with a handful of dress socks, unpaired, which he throws haphazardly into his suitcase. Thank God he only buys one kind, she thinks, or he’d be mismatched every day of his life.
“It’s Ontario, Josh, not the Arctic Circle. They have all the usual methods of transportation.”
He shrugs and zips up his suitcase, conceding the argument in his typical fashion - without saying so aloud. Picking up the unnecessary items, Donna heads down the hallway to put them away and turns to find him standing behind her, holding out her coat. He helps her into it, and they pick up their bags and head down to meet the cab to National, leaving the snowshoes tucked in the closet behind the stacks of boxes that house his old law school textbooks.
* * * * *
“Did you know that Canadians elect their Prime Minister based on the plurality of votes for a party rather than a specific candidate? And that he or she is then granted the title of ‘Right Honourable’?”
“Yes, I did know that,” Josh responds, leaning his head against the window and peering at the rising ground. They are finally, finally on approach to land in Toronto after a two-hour long delay on the tarmac at National. As long as they’re allowed to disembark quickly, they should have a whole thirty-five minutes of clearance before their connecting flight to Ottawa takes off. Josh sighs in frustration and boredom, doing his best to ignore Donna’s incessant blather about all things Canadian. Thank God that the airline had played a romantic comedy in an attempt to placate the passengers angered by the wait or he’d have been listening to these inane facts for hours now. As it is, she’s already been talking for fifteen straight minutes and he’s pretty sure that she’s just getting started.
“It’s actually a very common method of appointing government figures,” Donna continues as Josh lightly thumps his head against the glass in protest, “In fact, we’re the ones with the unusual system.”
Josh stills, leaving his forehead pressed against the glass. “I prefer the term ‘unique’. It makes us sound more innovative.”
“Speaking of innovation, you might be interested to know that it was in the province of Newfoundland in December of 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signals, originating in Cornwall, some twenty-one hundred miles away,” Donna says, her tone impossibly cheerful.
“Guglielmo Marconi? Odd name for a Canadian, isn’t it?” Josh asks, turning to face her. She smiles wryly.
“Well, he wasn’t Canadian… but he completed this Nobel Prize winning achievement on Canadian soil, so it still counts.”
Josh smiles at her, amused by her defense of a long-dead inventor. “So basically, the country is full of hockey-playing slackers and they have to ship in the talent from elsewhere?”
“No,” she responds, frowning slightly, “There are innumerable examples of innovative and influential Canadians. Joseph-Armand Bombardier was Canadian.”
“Bombardier as in planes and trains?”
“That’s the one,” she says and Josh emits an impressed whistle. Donna smirks and continues her lecture.
“Also Canadian was James Naismith. He invented basketball - though, technically, he was in Massachusetts at the time.” Josh gives her a skeptical look and she presses on. “Joe Shuster was Canadian.”
“Who’s he?”
“He created Superman.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. So they’ve had a couple of good inventors and creative minds. Not bad for a bunch of guys in igloos.”
Donna frowns at him. “Josh, they don’t live in igloos. You know as well as I do that living in Canada is pretty similar to living in the U.S.” - she pauses thoughtfully - “You know, except for the monkeys.”
The seatbelt light has come on again and she buckles up as the Captain details their approach on the overhead speakers.
“Monkeys?” Josh asks as he, too, buckles his belt. He hasn’t heard anything about monkeys… but then again, he’s only ever been in the airports and the Capitol and Canada is a pretty big country.
“Yeah,” Donna says, sounding surprised that he needs clarification. “Canada has an indigenous species of monkey, Cebus Canadianus, which lives in some of the more southern regions of the central provinces.”
“Oh yeah… sure,” Josh hedges, “I think I’ve heard of them. Do they… I mean, they just run free, right?”
“Yeah. Sort of like we have squirrels,” she says absently and Josh nods along. “Well, except that they’re apparently pretty crafty. In major cities like Toronto, they’ve been known to pick your pocket, so keep your hand on your wallet. Also, they’re kind of vicious. Most Canadian children have been bitten at least once by the age of five.”
Josh rolls his eyes as he finally catches on. “Okay, I see - you’re making a little joke, there. That’s cute; not funny but, you know… cute.”
“What put me over the top?” Donna asks as the plane lands, the touch-down sending minute shudders through his seat and body.
“The kids getting attacked,” Josh answers honestly, “The government wouldn’t put up with that without having a plan of action in place... and if the government was involved, I’d have known about it.”
“Right… but the idea of little monkey thieves didn’t tip you off at all?” Donna teases.
“Um… well, yeah, that too. Obviously,” he says and feigns interest in the announcement of the Captain’s well-wishes and thanks for flying Air Canada.
“Nice try,” Donna laughs as people begin to stand and make their way toward the exits, “You were buying it. You actually believed that a monkey might steal your wallet.”
“No, I didn’t,” Josh says, standing impatiently. Why does it always take so long for people to get off of a plane?
“Yes, you did. You believed me. You’re so trusting, Josh… like a naïve little deer.” She grins at him mischievously.
“Okay, that’s… enough. Let’s just drop it. No more Canadian trivia,” he says, craning his neck to see what’s taking so long. “What is going on up there? Follow the line and exit quickly, people - it’s not rocket science.”
Donna steps into the isle, then turns and gives him a reproachful look. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll lay off the fun facts about Canada” - he snorts but Donna presses on, ignoring his outburst - “the fun facts about Canada if you can manage to make it off this plane without complaining. And that includes the non-verbal stuff, like huffing and puffing and stomping your feet.”
Josh eyes the slowly moving line ahead of her and considers his position; there’s no way to make the people in front of them move faster and the wait will certainly seem longer if Donna is lecturing on the Hudson Bay Company… Turning back to Donna, Josh sighs and extends his hand. “Deal,” he says and they shake on it.
He actually does a pretty good job of keeping up his end of the bargain. He only rolls his eyes twice and he manages to keep his complaints to himself until they’ve not only disembarked, but also made it through customs and the luggage claim - at which point they are informed that their flight to Ottawa has been cancelled due to a blizzard… and all bets are off.
* * * * *
“It’s not even snowing!”
"I'm sure it's snowing in Ottawa, Josh."
"I can't... what kind of backwoods, incompetent... stop saying 'Cancelled'!"
"Calm down..."
"It's Canada, for God's sake; shouldn't they know how to deal with snow? I mean, call some Mounties, give them shovels and point them to the tarmac, how hard is that?"
“Josh -”
“This is insane. Stop saying ‘Cancelled’!” His pleas are punctuated by short, stilted bursts of movement as his arms fly through the air, drawing curious stares from the other travelers. Donna, slouched into a plastic chair in the terminal, plasters her frequently-used ‘yes, my boss is certifiable - please carry on with your business’ expression onto her face and tries her best to will away any security guards that might soon be alerted to the crazy, yelling man.
"I need you to take a deep breath, okay?"
“Stop saying ‘Cancelled’!” he yells, actually stomping his feet a little before stalking out a short circle in front of her.
“Josh!” she admonishes firmly, “The Departures Board can’t hear you. The security personnel, however, can… and they have a special little room for people who cause disturbances in airports!”
This doesn’t placate him exactly, but he must see the logic of her argument because he drops down into the chair beside her with a loud sigh.
Shifting in the uncomfortable airport chair, Josh lets his gaze slip over their surroundings while he works to deal with his familiar feelings of frustration at events that are out of his control. He knows it's silly to get worked up over this, especially since there is absolutely nothing he can do; it's not as though flashing a White House ID will make the airline supply him with a private plane - and even if it did, using his status like that has Congressional Hearing written all over it. But still, Josh finds it difficult to reconcile this knowledge with his current mood. Leo wanted him in Ottawa; ergo, he should be in Ottawa. For Josh, that's what matters and anything else is just an excuse. With another sigh, he turns his attention back to Donna to find her smiling softly at him before she stands, tossing her bag over her shoulder.
"Okay, let's go," she says, and sets out across the terminal. Josh, grabbing his own bags from the chair beside him, follows quickly, catching up to her in only a few strides.
"Where are we going?"
"Food court. I'm starving."
“Donna, I know you’re probably aching for a plate of Canadian bacon or something but do you really think your stomach should be the first priority at a time like this?”
“Yes. It’s lunchtime,” she says, barely sparing him a glance.
"Donna! We're stranded in the middle of nowhere! The President expects us in Ottawa and Canada is shut down because of a few snowflakes - which, by the way, is like D.C. shutting down because there are cars on Dupont Circle. We have more to worry about than your appetite." Josh struggles to dodge and weave through the flow of people who seem to part for Donna without accommodating him at all.
Donna shoots him a withering glance. "Okay. First off, the city of Toronto is the largest in Canada, with a population of 2.5 million and double that in the Greater Toronto Area. That means that more people live in Toronto than in the four Eastern-most Canadian provinces combined. In fact, it ranks fifth on a list of the most populous municipalities in North America. This city alone has twenty-two Municipal Ridings, the Canadian equivalent of a Congressional District. So it’s not like we’ve wandered into Brigadoon.”
“You say that now, Bonnie Jean, but just wait until we’re knee deep in corn fields and sheep.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re not growing corn at this time of year, Josh.”
Josh throws a sideways glare at Donna, but she's walking with a purpose, navigating her way through the airport with the zest and confidence of a guide, so she either doesn’t see it or just doesn’t bother to acknowledge it. His momentary lapse in attention does, however, nearly cause him to collide with a luggage cart that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He dodges the obstacle at the last second, sliding a little on the tiled floor, and ends up walking on the other side of Donna. They move out of the restricted area and into a large hallway, flanked on either side by stores and eateries.
"Fine, there probably won’t be corn,” he says irritably as Donna walks over to an area full of tables nestled between five or six booths offering pizza, burgers and the like. “Just don't come crying to me when you need to use the bathroom and we’re hours away from civilization.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who needed Trevor to pull over on the way to Unionville. Twice,” Donna says, flashing him a teasing smile.
“You know what, Smart-mouth?” he says and Donna raises her eyebrows.
“What?” she asks sharply and the witty comment he was about to make dies on his tongue as he realizes that uttering it will only get him six long hours in a car with a very pissed off assistant.
“We... um… need to figure out where we can rent a car." Josh responds, clumsily diverting the conversation back to their current situation. He allows his bag to drop to the floor at his feet while he scans their surroundings.
Donna smiles slightly and lifts her chin, indicating with her eyes that he should look behind him. Turning to glance over his shoulder, Josh sees a Hertz booth not fifteen feet away.
"You rent the car, I'll get the food?" Donna asks.
"Fine," Josh says, swinging his bag over his shoulder again, "I want a burger and fries, okay?"
Donna nods, but doesn't quite make eye contact and Josh puts out his hand to stop her walking away.
"Wait. Are you nodding that, yes, you'll go get me a burger, or are you just confirming that you know I want one, while plotting to bring me back some vegan, health-nut, cardboard thing?"
Donna looks off to the right, teeth teasing her lower lip, before she brings her gaze back to him. "I do not plot."
"Donna!"
“Josh, all you’ve eaten today is a donut. You should have something healthy.”
“Donna, you and I both know that despite my love of red meat and donuts, I actually eat reasonably well. Some would say incredibly well, considering the fact that most of my meals come out of a take-out carton. I don’t eat fried, fatty foods every day of my life. I eat boneless, skinless chicken breast. I eat lentil soup. I eat whole wheat bagels and light cream cheese. And I eat lots of vegetables, even going so far as to order double broccoli when we get beef and broccoli instead of kung-pao chicken.”
Donna rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything because really, he does eat pretty well - and has the body to prove it.
Josh smirks and leans in closer. “But I want you to know, I’m on to you.”
Donna raises her eyebrow questioningly. “You’re on to me? On to what?”
“You complain when I want a burger not because you’re worried about my cholesterol levels, but because you like your burgers half-raw.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“You bring me salads and turkey sandwiches because if I get a burger, you can’t eat half my food.” He leans back, smiling triumphantly.
Donna glances around the food court, unwilling to admit that he might have a point. "Josh …"
"Just bring me back a burger like I asked. And if the Canuck in you is thinking of ruining my fries by getting that nasty cheese and gravy thing, keep in mind the trouble I can make for the likes of you with the INS."
“Cute,” she says sarcastically before heading off in search of something edible.
* * * * *
Balancing the tray in one hand, Donna makes her way to an elevated table in the centre of the food court and grabs condiments, straws and a handful of napkins. The room is abuzz with lunch-hour activity and there is a constant hum of conversation. People who have come to pick up family or friends chatter away, filling one another in on their lives; business travelers speak loudly and monotonously into their cell phones; and children run around in makeshift games of tag, yelping and laughing while their parents scold them and order them to settle down.
Making her way over to the table, she sees that Josh is having some success at renting a car; there must have been something available because he’s being led through what is almost certainly a contract by the young man behind the counter. Donna drops the food off on their table and walks the few remaining yards over to Josh, realizing that it’ll be much faster for her to fill out the necessary information - she’s had his credit card and driver’s license numbers memorized for years.
The Hertz employee is a good-looking young man, probably in his late twenties, with light brown hair and an easy smile. He looks up as Donna reaches the counter and his grin immediately widens.
“You’re sure there’s nothing better than a Corolla available?” Josh is saying, his gaze occupied by the paperwork that he has just begun filling out.
Dammit, Donna thinks. The last time that Josh ended up with a Toyota, she’d had to hear about the rental company’s failure to support American craftsmanship for most of the trip.
The man shakes his head at Josh absently but continues to smile at Donna.
“Bonjour,” he says softly, before catching himself and repeating, “Hello,” in a Québéçois accent.
“Bonjour,” Donna replies, glancing at his name tag, “Marc.”
Hmm. Given the way this young man is smiling at her, she might just be able to do something about their rental options.
“Puis-je vous aider… Madame,” he replies.
"Ah, non. M'appelez Donna, s'il vous plaît," she remarks, thanking God that although she was fickle in college, she enjoyed French enough to keep it up after high school.
"Donna, bien sûr - un très jolie nom pour une très jolie femme," Marc compliments her name as he leans forward onto the counter. Oh yeah, this is going to be easy.
Donna lets out a flirty laugh, drawing a curious glance from Josh who has apparently given up on the paperwork.
“J’ai besion d’une voiture, mais elle doit être un ‘Chrysler’,” she begins, specifically asking for an American-made car. She leans toward Marc who moves in a little closer as she whispers, “I have a… thing… for Chryslers.”
Marc grins at her and grabs a clipboard from under the counter. “Well,” he says, “it just so happens that we have a Chrysler 300 available. For - ” he offers her a seductive look, “special customers.”
Donna can see Josh bristle in her peripheral vision and gives him a nudge with her leg to keep him silent while she accepts the clipboard from Marc. When Marc turns to get the key, she glances at Josh and, with a pointed look and a tilt of her head, indicates that he should go wait at their table. He narrows his eyes at her and she widens hers, silently urging him to refrain from messing up the deal she’s brokered. Rolling his eyes and sighing theatrically, Josh finally acquiesces, leaving the counter just as Marc turns back around.
Once she finishes with the paperwork and gets the car keys, she joins Josh at the table. He’s already half-way through his burger as she takes a seat across from him. Donna unwraps her sandwich and begins eating, staring at Josh - but he’s apparently engrossed in his own food and doesn’t seem to want to talk. They finish their lunch in relative quiet before throwing out their trash and gathering their bags.
As they make their way through the airport to the parking garage, Josh breaks the silence, mumbling something under his breath.
“What did you say?” she asks as they step off the elevator.
“I said that Marc,” he says, emphasizing the French pronunciation, “is a jingoist.”
“What?” Donna asks, approaching the rental car and thumbing the unlock button on the keychain.
“He’s a jingoist. He told me that a Corolla was the best he could do,” Josh says, slipping into the driver’s seat.
“And that makes him a jingoist?” Donna asks, tossing their bags into the back before climbing in beside Josh and handing him the keys.
“Yes. He’s an anti-American snob.”
“Josh, that makes no sense. I’m just as…” she pauses for a moment before continuing, “Ah, okay. You’re making another one of your little ‘Donna-is-Canadian’ jokes. Can I expect an end to this in the near future? Because I have to tell you, you’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”
“First of all, my jokes are very funny,” he says, turning on the ignition and throwing the car into gear. “And secondly, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“I didn’t think so.” Donna replies forlornly as he steers the car toward the exit. “Though on the bright side, at least this is a good opportunity to get it all out of your system. I’d rather not be your straight-man for President Bartlet’s entire second term.”
“Donna, you’ve been playing my straight-man for five years - what makes you think it’s going to stop once I run out of Canadian jokes?”
“True enough.” She’s quiet for moment as Josh enters the code to allow them to exit the garage. As they drive out into the maze of on and off-ramps, Donna eyes the grey and clouded sky. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Ottawa if we run into a blizzard?”
“I don’t know,” Josh replies absently.
Donna grins as she turns to face him - if she’s going to play straight-man, she might as well go all out.
“Third base,” she says and Josh groans.
* * * * *
“One more.”
“Josh, I’m tired.”
They are two hours from the airport, Donna half-buried under a pile of papers as she goes through her notes to prepare for the next few days. Josh glances over, his eyes flickering back and forth between the road and her as she sets down the notes for a moment and gathers her hair up before twisting it into a makeshift bun which she holds in place with a spare pencil. He loves it when she does that. Her hair never stays that way for long - Donna has complained that it’s too fine - but while it’s up, it makes Josh smile. He likes the way the little strands escape in every direction as soon as she moves her hands away. He likes the fact that the bun is never centered and that little wisps of hair, too short to make it into the bun at all, curl slightly as they lie against her slender neck. It’s one of the most disheveled hairstyles he ever sees her wear, but that’s what he likes most about it. It’s a sign of comfort in her surroundings - that she lets herself look a little untidy - and Josh appreciates being one of the few to get to enjoy it.
“So, Leo’s going to talk to Sam?” she asks and Josh refocuses on the road.
“Yeah and he’ll have him call me later on, once they’re finished for the day. It’s mostly photo-ops and receptions today anyway.” Josh keeps his eyes straight ahead as Donna reaches for the radio, scanning the stations for something they’ll both like before settling on a classic rock station. “Come on, Donna, you’re doing really well. One more right will make ten in a row.”
“Is there some sort of prize at stake?”
“Like what?”
“A trip to Maui?”
“You don’t get a Hawaiian vacation by winning a game, Donna.”
“I don’t get a Hawaiian vacation at all, apparently.”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t so willing to give up when victory is within -”
“And I’m not sure this really qualifies as a game, Josh.”
He looks at her, slightly hurt. “Hey, you taught me this game!”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head, “No, no, no, no, no. I taught you Six Degrees of
Kevin Bacon. You took a fun, silly party game and twisted it into some weird, bastardized version of a Poly Sci final.”
“You like playing it, though,” he prods, looking over at her until she meets his eye. “Admit it.”
Donna fixes him with an admonishing stare but he pretends not to notice as he returns his eyes to the road. “Okay, fine, I like it. But only because I thirst for knowledge, Josh. I am insatiable in my quest for information.”
“And a collector of all things trivial,” he says, unable to resist teasing her, a little.
“Do you want to play or do you want to mock me?”
“God, that’s a tough one…”
“Josh.”
“I want to play because I’ve got a really good one.”
“All bills we’ve worked on in the past year?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, hit me.”
“Congressman Stevens to Congressman Kurtz.”
“Stevens of Iowa or Stephens of Texas?”
“Iowa.”
She sighs, tilting her head against the window as she considers the puzzle. Josh doesn’t speak again, letting her think. This one is pretty hard. He’d actually had to put some thought into it and he doesn’t expect her to be able to figure it out for at least five -
“Got it.”
Josh looks at her with some surprise. “Already? You don’t want to… I don’t know, phone
a friend or something?”
“There are no lifelines in Six Degrees of the U.S. House of Representatives, Josh. And even if there were, I don’t need to phone a friend because I know the answer. Stevens co-authored H.R. 353, the Domestic Violence Victims’ Relief Act, with Representative Collins from Oklahoma. Collins worked on the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act with Congressman Hartford. Hartford added a Paternal Consent Amendment to the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which was authored by Representative Jenkins. And Jenkins was on House Oversight with - drum roll please - Congressman Joseph Kurtz, Democrat of Pennsylvania.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“That was impressive. That only took you about three minutes.”
“I know.”
“You have a freakish ability to retain details.”
“I’m quite something.”
“Yes, a freak. Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah well, you made up this game, so who’s the bigger freak?” she asks, scratching
something onto the notes in her lap. “By the way - feel free to book the flight to Maui as soon as we get back to DC.”
He laughs a little and flicks on the wipers as the first flakes of snow begin to fall from the sky. It’s the heavy kind of snow; thick, wet snowflakes making dime-sized spots of water where they hit the glass.
This is the type of snow that always looks so romantic in the movies, he thinks cynically, when really, it’s only beautiful from a distance. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s just inconvenient; yet another example of fictional love bearing no resemblance to that in real life. As much as it looks like the epitome of romance for some Hollywood heartthrob to be standing in a blizzard, kissing the hell out of some girl as the snow falls all around them, Josh figures that what those people are actually feeling is… well, cold. And probably wet. He can think of much nicer ways to spend time with a woman than standing ankle deep in a snow drift, cultivating pneumonia. In fact, just being in this car is a thousand times better than -
Josh physically shakes himself out of his reverie, blaming that narrowly avoided train of thought on travel-fatigue.
Glancing over at Donna, he finds her watching him with a concerned expression.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Josh replies, forcing a cheerful tone, “Why do you ask?”
“You shivered a bit,” she answers as she continues to look him over.
“It’s, uh, a bit cold I guess,” he replies and she nods. He offers her a reassuring smile as she reaches out to adjust the temperature.
“Thanks,” Josh says, but he doesn’t really relax until she turns her attention back to her notes.
He spares a moment to look at her, careful to keep his mind blank, as she bites her lip in concentration. Smiling softly at the familiar gestures, Josh then returns his full attention to navigating the car through the already accumulating snow and sighs. If this doesn’t let up, it’s going to be a long, slippery ride to Ottawa.
* * * * *
“Admit it.”
“Josh…”
They’re standing at the door of a family owned diner at a rest-stop about an hour from Ottawa. Well, it would be an hour from Ottawa, if the storm hadn’t turned the roads into skating rinks immediately before covering them with another foot of snow all within the last ninety minutes. The few cars left on the road have slowed to a crawl as everyone creeps their way through the near-mountains of powder that the plows have yet to clear. The wind is blowing the snow on the road back up into the air, causing swirling funnels of white which have reduced visibility to almost nothing. That combined with the distinct lack of four wheel drive in the Chrysler had resulted in three close calls - two with snow-filled ditches and one with an oncoming truck - before Donna had insisted that they find somewhere to stop for the night.
And so here they are, fifty minutes and only four kilometers away from that decision, in the vestibule of Fran’s Eats & Treats, fortified by meatloaf specials and directions to the nearby Slumberland Hotel. They stand side by side, listening to the storm rattle the door in its frame, gearing themselves up for the trek through the ever deepening snow.
“Don’t ‘Josh’ me, Donna, I want to hear you say it.”
“I -”
“Say it.”
“But it -“
“Donna!”
“You won’t -“
“And don’t say I won’t let you because you and I both know that you were going to argue every one of those times. Now, admit it!” he prods and Donna throws him a dirty look.
Josh meets her gaze evenly and she sighs, eying the drifts that have formed along the side of the rental car, covering the bottom four inches of the wheels. Resigned, she turns back and looks Josh in the eye.
“Okay, fine. I admit it,” she says, narrowing her eyes as he smirks and gestures for her to continue. “We should have brought the snowshoes.”
* * * * *
“I’m just saying - he was unnecessarily hostile,” Josh says as he precedes Donna into the room, holding the door open wide so that she can enter - her arms are full, their bags wrapped around her like small moons in tight orbit.
Josh closes the door behind her then he walks the rest of the way into the room, shrugging off his overcoat and dropping it on a chair by the door before collapsing onto the bed. Donna arranges the suitcases in an out-of-the-way corner, then immediately picks up Josh’s overcoat, hanging it in the closet along with her coat and his garment bag.
“He wasn’t hostile until you were hostile,” she says, coming over and sitting on the bed. She toes off her shoes and leans back against the headboard.
Josh lifts his head off the pillow so that he can look at her. “I was not hostile. I was… firmly persuasive.”
“You called him a liar. You accused him of cutting the phone lines so that he wouldn’t have to report cash transactions to the government - the branch to which you were referring, by the way, is Revenue Canada and not ‘Canad-IRS’.”
“The ice-weighed-down-the-lines story is a little coincidental, though, isn’t it? No credit cards, just cash? And he was creepy. Beady little eyes, white eyebrows, yellow skin. I think he might be the Devil’s earthly guise.”
“Josh, you think everyone who disagrees with you is the Devil’s earthly guise.”
“No, I don’t.”
“At some point in the last four years, you’ve told me that half the Republican members of the House are the Devil’s earthy guise.”
“Yeah, but… that’s just common sense.”
“Of course it is, Josh,” she says, patting his shoulder as he lets his head drop back onto the pillow..
“Besides, he could have taken the Visa number and run it through when the lines are back up,” he continues.
“And he might have been willing to do that if you hadn’t accused him of tax evasion when he first mentioned that the phones were out of service.”
“It would have made him more money, since we only had enough cash for one room.”
“True, but he wasn’t inclined to do us any favors after your little outburst.”
“I still say he was lying. I mean, do you honestly think it’s likely that the phone lines went down hours ago, while the the power stayed on?”
“Josh!” she exclaims. “Don’t say things like that! You’ll jinx it.”
“Oh, come on, Donna. Exactly what kind of power do you think I yield?” he says and chuckles as she glances around warily. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
After eying the overhead light suspiciously, Donna finally breaks into a small smile. “Alright, fine. But let’s not push our luck, okay? I think we’ve had enough mishaps on this trip already.”
Josh smirks. “Afraid of the dark, are we?”
“Not so much afraid of the dark as afraid of the inevitable calamity that would result from the two of us staggering around in it. If the power does go out, we should make sure that only one of us is moving at a time.”
“Why?” Josh asks, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Because,” Donna says reasonably, “we’d probably bump into each other and knock ourselves unconscious or grope each other accidentally or something equally reminiscent of an episode of Three’s Company.”
Josh’s eyes widen slightly at the mention of groping and Donna feels herself begin to flush. The silence is awkward now and Donna struggles to think of something to say to get them back onto safe ground. Before she can think of anything though, the sound of Josh’s ringing phone breaks the silence. Donna jumps almost imperceptibly and the corners of Josh’s mouth twitch in amusement as he sits up and reaches into his suit jacket to liberate his cell.
“Josh Lyman… hey, Sam, how’s it going?” Josh begins and motions toward their bags. Donna relaxes as they slip back into their normal routine - she grants his unspoken request and fetches him the notes from Advance along with a pen and legal pad. Josh is focused on the call, voicing the occasional ‘uh-huh’ and ‘yeah’, and Donna assumes Sam is filling him in on the trip so far.
Once Donna has handed everything over to Josh, she raises an eyebrow, silently asking whether he needs anything more from her. Josh meets her eye and, shaking his head, gestures that he’s fine without her for now. Donna shivers, shifting uncomfortably; her pants are soaked below the knees from the snow - she needs to get warm. She walks over to her suitcase and fishes out her bag of toiletries along with some clothes to sleep in.
“Josh,” she says, speaking quietly but firmly, and his eyes focus on her, looking over the bundle under her arm. He raises his eyebrows questioningly. “I’m gonna go take a quick bath. Let me know if you need anything?”
Josh nods and waves her off as he turns his attention back to Sam. Donna walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her, not bothering to lock it. Part of her wonders whether this is because she knows Josh wouldn’t walk in on her or because she secretly wants him to… but she doesn’t allow the musings to surface to the forefront of her mind.
Donna leans over the bathtub, turning on the faucet and adjusting the temperature to her liking, the sound of the rushing water muting Josh’s voice completely. She digs through her bag, pulls out a bottle of green tea scented body wash and pours some under the tap as makeshift bubble-bath. Then she steps away from the tub, stripping off her clothes and laying them neatly folded on the counter. She finds a hair clip in the bag and secures her hair into a loose bun before sitting on the edge of the bathtub and swinging her legs over the side. Leaning forward to turn off the water, Donna slowly skims her feet along the surface, hissing as the heat stings her icy toes. As she waits for her feet to acclimate to the change in temperature, she scolds herself for being nervous.
She’s going to sleep with Josh tonight… so what? There’s only one bed and she’s not going to let him sleep on the floor - his back would be in five kinds of agony in the morning. It’s downright silly that she’s anxious about this at all. It’s just sleep - it’s not like anything is going to happen. She would never let it. As much as she wants Josh, wants to touch him and feel his body against hers in a decidedly un-boss/assistant-like capacity, she values their friendship too much to risk destroying it for carnal satisfaction. Not to mention the likelihood that her feelings for him are unrequited.
And anyway, it won’t be the first time they’ve slept alongside one another. They always seem to pass out propped against each other on Air Force One. And there were many times during the campaign when they’d all end up sleeping for precious, stolen fractions of an hour between strategy sessions and events; she, Josh, CJ, Sam and Toby lying in any combination on adjacent double beds in dozens of different Holiday Inns across the country, some of them clutching memos and polling data to their chests like security blankets. Not to mention the fact that she had slept on his sofa for the first week after he’d been discharged from GW so that she’d be within shouting distance if he needed something. A couple of times, she’d woken in his darkened living room, suddenly terrified that he’d gotten sicker or, God forbid, even died in the night while she wasn’t watching - and she’d stumble, half-asleep and panicked to his room, only to find him deeply asleep, face buried beneath his pillow, arm tucked protectively against his chest. On those nights, Donna would ease onto the edge of his bed, careful not to disturb him, and simply watch him sleep until the frantic beating in her chest had calmed.
Now, as she slowly lowers herself into the fragrant water, she resolves to keep her desires at bay. She will sleep beside him as his coworker and his friend - no differently than if she were Sam or Toby - and Josh will never suspect that there is anything more to her feelings for him. Donna leans back, submerging herself to her shoulders, and lets her mind wander, lulled by the indecipherable murmur of Josh’s voice in the other room.
* * * * *
“Wait, so you’re sharing a room?” Sam asks, his voice disbelieving.
“Yeah,” Josh answers distractedly, making some final notes on the legal pad.
“And you think this is a good idea?”
“I think it’s the only idea, unless I send her out in the blizzard to find an ATM.” Josh pauses, brow furrowing. “Why, you think it’s going to be a problem? There aren’t really any other options, except me freezing to death in the car, which, I think, would create a lot more bad press - not to mention that Mary Marsh would have material for a million jokes about me having no problem thawing in the afterlife.”
“I’m not worried about the PR side of it, Josh, I’m worried about you,” Sam says and Josh raises an eyebrow.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Sam sighs into the phone and pauses, seemingly hesitant to elaborate.
“Josh… I don’t want to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong. And I certainly don’t want to force you to talk about things you might not be ready to accept or even be aware of -“
Sam is cut off by the sound of Josh’s incredulous snort. “Josh?”
“I’m sorry,” Josh mutters, “I just… you really believe that I have no idea what people think?”
“What people think… with regards to what?” Sam sounds honestly perplexed and Josh isn’t sure whether he’s misunderstood the direction of the conversation or whether Sam is trying to give him enough rope to hang himself.
“Nothing, Sam. What were you going to say?” Josh says, deciding to play it cool.
Sam pauses a moment before confirming that Josh’s initial instinct had been correct. “It’s just… you and Donna… you’re not like other people.”
“We’re not?” Josh asks, feigning ignorance as to where this is going. After all, everyone seems to believe he’s completely oblivious to this… ‘thing’ that he has with Donna. Of course, everyone also seems to believe it’s their duty to make cryptic comments, scrutinize his behavior and form opinions on his life - a trend which he’s finding more and more intolerable.
“No. At least, you’re not like other bosses and their assistants.” Sam pauses, but Josh stays silent, wanting to see what, specifically, Sam has noticed and decided to harp on. “You guys… the way you talk to each other, the way you look at her, the things you know…”
That one confuses Josh and he speaks up. “The things I know?”
Sam sighs. “Josh, what’s Donna’s shoe size?”
“Nine and a half,” he answers promptly.
“And the last DVD she bought?”
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Josh replies, remembering that they had watched it together one Sunday, then spent weeks randomly inserting bits of dialogue into their daily interaction. He smiles at a memory of her referring to him as “a man of science” when he ordered duck at a Chinese restaurant, CJ and Toby fixing them with identical looks of bewilderment.
“And her allergies?”
“Pears and ragweed.”
“This is what I’m saying. I have no idea if Bonnie is allergic to anything. And try asking Toby for Ginger’s shoe size the next time you see him.”
“I think I’ll pass on that, Sam,” Josh remarks, picturing the look Toby would surely give him following an inquiry like that.
“You see my point, though, right?” Sam presses and Josh sighs. This is the closest anyone has come to saying ‘what’s this elephant doing in the middle of the bullpen?’ and Josh is eager to keep this conversation as vague as possible.
“Yes, Sam, I see your point.”
“And given that point, you don’t think that you’re putting yourself in a potentially volatile situation?”
“No, I don’t,” Josh replies firmly.
There is a moment of silence while Sam seems to consider what his friend has said, then - “I don’t understand. How can you think this isn’t at least a little bit risky?”
Josh stands and begins pacing back and forth across the room, keeping as far away from the bathroom door as possible. He lowers his voice so that there’s no way for Donna to be able to hear him.
“Sam, it’s not risky because it’s a non-issue,” he says, running his hand through his hair.
“It’s a non-issue?” Sam repeats, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“In spite of all the things we just talked about?”
“Yes.” Josh squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “No. Dammit, Sam - I’ve heard the rumors, okay? I know what people say about us. None of it is true.”
“Of course it isn’t, Josh. Everyone who actually knows you knows that.”
“Right. But the people who make up those rumors? The ones who say I’m a letch and Donna slept her way to her job? They don’t care what’s fact and what’s fiction. They’re going to say what they want whether we share a room or sleep in separate provinces. Because their minds have already been made up.”
“That’s true but -“
“No. No buts. What am I supposed to do, Sam? Stop talking to one of my best friends because some jackass on the Hill thinks that if I know her shoe-size I’m automatically sleeping with her?” He’s getting pissed off now, struggling to keep his voice down. The thing is, he knows that’s not what Sam is saying - but, dammit, it’s not fair. He shouldn’t have to worry about this unsubstantiated bullshit.
“Of course not, Josh, nobody is suggesting you do that. And I don’t care what those people think. That’s not why I’m mentioning this. I’m just worried that you’re putting yourself in an awkward position.”
“Sam, do you honestly believe… Do you really think I’d risk…” He’s so frustrated now that he can’t even finish the thought. Taking a deep breath, he changes tactics. “Sam, look…,” he says, his voice carefully devoid of emotion, “I understand your concern. But believe me when I tell you, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Sam responds apologetically, “Okay. I mean, I know that. I just wanted to… I don’t know. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“That’s all right. It just pisses me off, you know?”
“I have some idea, yes.” Sam answers, sounding amused. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. We’ll be on the road as soon as the plows do their thing.” Josh says.
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye, Sam.”
Josh flips his cell closed and tosses it onto the bedside table, then sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, trying to control the thoughts racing through his mind. He hates it when people try to talk to him about Donna. It drives him nuts, having to assure them that there’s nothing to worry about. Especially since he won’t allow himself to give much thought as to the reason why.
In fact, the closest he’s ever been to fully articulating it was one afternoon, a couple of years back when he’d been at home recovering after Rosslyn. He’d been flipping through a physics text book when he came across Heisenberg’s Theory and it just… spoke to him. He’d read that section and then reread it again. Four times in all before he put the book aside and went to make a sandwich.
“So measurement of either position or momentum makes the other factor indefinite,” Josh had mumbled to himself as he pulled some chicken and mayonnaise out of the fridge, “As though it’s the very act of determination that changes the features of the object.”
He had turned it over in his mind a few times while putting together his lunch. And it wasn’t until he was halfway back to the couch, food in hand, that it had hit him - he knew why that theory was so attractive to him, why the concept felt so right, so justified.
It was because of Donna.
He was aware that his friendship with Donna was unlike any other friendship he’d ever had - that there was something different, something special between them. And because their friendship was so important to him, he would never allow himself to seriously consider whether there might be the potential for anything more… because he was absolutely terrified that, simply by measuring, he might change the object.
Now, sitting on a hotel bed in Canada, Josh finds himself unable to keep from thinking about the momentum and position of particles as he stands up, shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it across his suitcase. As he pulls off his tie, he hears the bathroom door open behind him and turns to see Donna emerge, face flushed with heat and scrubbed clean of make-up. Her slender body is clad only in a pair of grey University of Wisconsin sweatpants and a plain cotton t-shirt and all thoughts of particle physics are shoved from his mind as he thinks to himself that she has, quite possibly, never looked so beautiful. Tearing his eyes away from her, he makes a show of collecting the papers he had strewn across the surface of the bed while he was talking to Sam.
“Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“Bathroom’s free if you want to… get changed or anything.”
“Right,” he says, glancing at her for a moment before going over to his bag and pulling out a toothbrush, a clean pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Then he heads into the bathroom to clean up.
Donna places her toiletries in her bag, followed by her dirty clothes, then takes out and hangs up the clothes that she will be wearing in the morning. That done, she takes out her cell phone, setting the alarm before placing it on the table on the side of the bed opposite to the one where Josh’s cell already sits. Turning on the lamp, Donna sits down cross-legged at the top of the bed, and is in the process of taking the clip out of her hair when Josh comes out of the bathroom wearing a faded Mets t-shirt and a pair of dark blue plaid boxers. While he takes his clothes and toothbrush over to the corner and drops them onto the growing pile on his suitcase, Donna allows her eyes to trace the shape of his body, her gaze lingering on his muscular arms and legs, normally hidden under his suit. She continues to watch him as he walks to the door to check the lock and then flicks off the overhead light before returning to the bed. He reaches up and pulls down the blankets on his side, sliding into bed beside her.
“Without internet access or a fax machine, there’s not much we can accomplish tonight,” he says, stretching back onto the mattress. “And we should try to get an early start in the morning - assuming the snow lets up enough for the roads to be cleared.”
“Well,” she says, “at least we’ll get a decent night sleep for once.”
Josh yawns. “I don’t think I’ve gone to bed before eleven since junior high but all that driving’s wiped me out.”
Donna reaches over to turn off the lamp and then crawls under the blankets, rolling onto her back.
“I think you forgot something,” Josh says, his voice close and quiet.
Donna turns her head towards the sound but she’s unable to see him in the near-complete darkness.
“What?” she asks, reviewing her mental checklist.
“Isn’t it customary to sing ‘O Canada’ before turning in for the night?” he jokes and Donna groans.
“Oh, for the love of… just go to sleep, Josh.”
“Seriously, if you want to watch Hockey Night in Canada or go curling or something, I promise to save you a spot in the bed.”
“Okay, enough. Put down the shtick; the horse is dead,” she says, lightly swatting him on the arm. She can feel his body shaking with laughter beneath her hand.
“Ow! Alright, alright, I’ll find something else to make fun of tomorrow. Even though I’m sure the President will be spouting enough trivia to set up hundreds of jokes, I’ll restrain myself for your benefit. Just remember that if you ever feel the urge to bring up the whole ‘monkey thieves plague the streets of Toronto’ thing.”
“I will. I’d just really rather not have Sam and CJ in on the teasing; one day of it was more than enough. Can we just put it behind us and never speak of it again?”
“Absolutely,” Josh replies.
“Good,” Donna says, relieved, “And thank you.”
They both lay still for a few moments and then Donna feels Josh shift. The mattress moves slightly as he repositions himself and she turns on her side to face him. As she settles, she feels his fingers brush hers. They don’t hold hands but neither breaks the contact, simply allowing their wrists and pinkie fingers to lie against each other, touching lightly. The gesture is inordinately soothing though, for all its lack of grandeur. Donna sleepily muses that their position - the careful, platonic contact giving disproportionate comfort - is somewhat representative of them on a deeper level. They’ve always been able to communicate a lot with only a little. Smiling to herself, Donna uses her free arm to pull the blankets tightly around her and burrows into her pillow.
“Goodnight, Josh,” she says drowsily, closing her eyes and allowing her body to relax.
“Goodnight, Donna,” he answers and she’s nearly asleep when he speaks again, his words coming to her across the divide of half-consciousness.
“Sweet dreams… eh?”
She doesn’t dignify him with an answer; now is the time to chase after sleep - although of course, tomorrow there will be plenty of opportunities to tell the President just how interested Josh is in discussing Canadian history and culture…
End
Author: Leli
Prompt: (#133) Josh/Donna - She was only Canadian for about half an hour, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to tease her about it.
Fandom: The West Wing
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Josh/Donna. Sam makes a brief appearance.
Warning: Nothing, really. Spoilers up to Swiss Diplomacy, I suppose.
Summary: Josh and Donna visit their neighbor to the North.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I profit from nothing. All characters are the creation and/or property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells, NBC and/or Warner Bros.
A/N: Thanks to caz963 for the beta.
A/N2: This takes place somewhere in the late fall of season four… just before Arctic Radar.
In the Great White North
(or Why We Don't Mess with Heisenberg)
“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and vice versa.”
- Werner Heisenberg, 1927
* * * * *
The sound of her ring-tone jolts her rudely out of sleep and Donna shakes her head to clear away the remnants of a half-remembered dream as she rolls towards her nightstand. She glances at the alarm clock and groans as she untangles the phone from the charger.
“… better be good, Josh,” she mumbles, her mind struggling to catch up with her body, which had answered her cellphone with the skillful motions of… well, someone who’s had way too much practice answering cellphone calls in the middle of the night.
“Good morning, Starshine!” He sounds much too awake to have been up all night. He must have slept some and then had time for a hot shower before he called her - which means that this isn’t an emergency. Or at least not a real emergency, like an unfavorable whip count or the threat of nuclear war. If it was something that urgent, he would have called her before he was even out of bed himself. Donna drags a hand over her face and struggles to formulate a coherent response.
“I swear, after sending me home less than four hours ago, you had better not be calling to tell me that the earth says hello,” she says, but her admonishment is half-hearted. She doesn’t need to see him to know that he’s smirking, thrilled that she’s going along with his joke. She had honestly done it without even thinking; she’s tuned to him even in her sleep, apparently - a thought she quickly pushes aside.
“But it does say hello, Donna,” he replies cheerfully.
“No, it says ‘Why, Joshua Lyman, are you awake at this ungodly hour?’” Donna mumbles, rolling onto her back and fighting the incredible weight of her eyelids.
His tone of voice changes and becomes less jovial. “So, there’s a thing," he says and suddenly it’s much easier to keep her eyes open.
"Good thing or bad thing?"
"Uh... bad for others, moderately inconvenient for us 'thing'. Apparently, there’s some problem with the words of welcome that we sent the new Israeli Foreign Minister.”
“I thought Toby was Leo’s point-man on that?” she says, her words distorted by a yawn.
“He is. And he’s been trying to get to the bottom of it all night, but apparently the new guy is being pretty... selective when it comes to who he’ll deal with. Not that he has anything against Toby; just that Yosef and Leo went way back and Dahan wants to cement former ties in order to maintain that type of relationship… or something like that. He says he’s more comfortable skipping the middle man.”
“I bet Toby loved that.”
“Ginger said he’s been close to losing it all night. He's holed up in his office with his Yankees cap and a glass of scotch, muttering about marginalization and the demise of fraternity. She won't give him any more coffee and she had Bonnie confiscate his balls out of fear he’d throw one right through the wall.”
Donna snorts at the double entendre then realizes that Josh has paused, apparently waiting for some response other than her amusement.
“Okay - well, this is all a very entertaining story, but why am I hearing it at,” she checks her clock again, “four twenty-six in the morning?”
“Leo’s coming back to deal with the Dahan thing.”
“And to calm Toby down before he does something to irrevocably insult the land of his forefathers?”
“Right, and that. So, Leo's headed back to D.C., which means that someone has to go help the President explore the beauty of the Great White North,” Josh says and a feeling of dread begins to leak into her stomach.
“Oh, God…” she murmurs.
“And that someone is us,” Josh finishes with a flourish.
“No, that someone is you, Cartier. Why do I have to go?”
"You don’t want to visit your ‘home and native land’?"
“Josh, I was Canadian for maybe an hour more than six months ago. It might be time to move on,” she says, pulling the comforter tighter around her body in a futile attempt to post-pone the inevitable.
“You really don’t want to go? Because you always complain about being left behind when I travel alone.”
“Yeah, but that’s when we talk about it during the day,” she explains. “This is the middle of the night. And besides, you’re going to Ottawa; it’s not exactly a scintillating travel destination.”
“I’m not hearing a lot of ‘true patriot love’ from you, Donna.”
“I can’t imagine why not - sleep deprivation usually brings out the loyalist in me.”
“Okay, fine. You can stay home if you want,” Josh says and Donna sits up in bed, suddenly wary.
“I can?” she asks doubtfully.
“Sure,” he replies. “In fact, to show you that I’m sorry for the ‘true patriot love’ crack, I’ll even bring you back something special. Something firmly rooted in Canadian history and native culture.”
“You will?” Donna asks, incredulous.
“Absolutely. Go back to sleep. Oh - and before I hang up, remind me -” he says, a smirk evident in his voice, “- you like moose, right?”
* * * * *
“Josh, no.”
They’re standing in his living room, dawn casting purple hues on their faces as they debate over the latest items Josh has tried to add to his packing. His predictably disorganized packing. Donna eyes the crumpled mound of boxer shorts, t-shirts, ties and files in Josh’s suitcase with open disapproval. She sifts through the pile, rescuing the ties from certain dishevelment and hanging them in the garment bag with his suits while Josh continues to plead his case for bringing the ridiculous-looking objects.
“Come on, we might need them.” He raises an eyebrow at her, obviously enjoying the absurdity of the conversation. In fact, she surmises, he probably wouldn’t have even brought the darn things out if they didn’t have an extra five minutes before the cab would be there. When he’s bored, Josh tends to make his own fun and the results are often disastrous. Just ask the guys who had to repair the smoke damage in the Mural Room...
“Josh, there is no way you’ll need them,” she responds patiently, “You do, however, need clean socks. Did you remember to pack those?”
“Of course I did.”
Donna glances at the bag skeptically. “Would you mind double-checking?”
“I’m fully capable of packing for myself, you know,” Josh says, glaring at her. She raises an eyebrow and he lets out an exaggerated sigh, then begins to rummage through his clothes. “I swear, there are socks in here… somewhere…”
After several moments of fruitless searching, a crease forms across Josh’s forehead and he heads back into the bedroom, presumably to search out a few clean pairs. Donna smiles to herself as she watches him leave the room, her eyes lingering on one attribute in particular. Usually, she’s walking along side him, so it’s not as often as she’d like that she gets to enjoy the benefits of his quick stride. As he turns into his room, she returns her attention to the items on the table.
“Josh? I’m putting these back in the closet, okay?”
“I’m just sayin’, they could come in handy.” He comes back with a handful of dress socks, unpaired, which he throws haphazardly into his suitcase. Thank God he only buys one kind, she thinks, or he’d be mismatched every day of his life.
“It’s Ontario, Josh, not the Arctic Circle. They have all the usual methods of transportation.”
He shrugs and zips up his suitcase, conceding the argument in his typical fashion - without saying so aloud. Picking up the unnecessary items, Donna heads down the hallway to put them away and turns to find him standing behind her, holding out her coat. He helps her into it, and they pick up their bags and head down to meet the cab to National, leaving the snowshoes tucked in the closet behind the stacks of boxes that house his old law school textbooks.
* * * * *
“Did you know that Canadians elect their Prime Minister based on the plurality of votes for a party rather than a specific candidate? And that he or she is then granted the title of ‘Right Honourable’?”
“Yes, I did know that,” Josh responds, leaning his head against the window and peering at the rising ground. They are finally, finally on approach to land in Toronto after a two-hour long delay on the tarmac at National. As long as they’re allowed to disembark quickly, they should have a whole thirty-five minutes of clearance before their connecting flight to Ottawa takes off. Josh sighs in frustration and boredom, doing his best to ignore Donna’s incessant blather about all things Canadian. Thank God that the airline had played a romantic comedy in an attempt to placate the passengers angered by the wait or he’d have been listening to these inane facts for hours now. As it is, she’s already been talking for fifteen straight minutes and he’s pretty sure that she’s just getting started.
“It’s actually a very common method of appointing government figures,” Donna continues as Josh lightly thumps his head against the glass in protest, “In fact, we’re the ones with the unusual system.”
Josh stills, leaving his forehead pressed against the glass. “I prefer the term ‘unique’. It makes us sound more innovative.”
“Speaking of innovation, you might be interested to know that it was in the province of Newfoundland in December of 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signals, originating in Cornwall, some twenty-one hundred miles away,” Donna says, her tone impossibly cheerful.
“Guglielmo Marconi? Odd name for a Canadian, isn’t it?” Josh asks, turning to face her. She smiles wryly.
“Well, he wasn’t Canadian… but he completed this Nobel Prize winning achievement on Canadian soil, so it still counts.”
Josh smiles at her, amused by her defense of a long-dead inventor. “So basically, the country is full of hockey-playing slackers and they have to ship in the talent from elsewhere?”
“No,” she responds, frowning slightly, “There are innumerable examples of innovative and influential Canadians. Joseph-Armand Bombardier was Canadian.”
“Bombardier as in planes and trains?”
“That’s the one,” she says and Josh emits an impressed whistle. Donna smirks and continues her lecture.
“Also Canadian was James Naismith. He invented basketball - though, technically, he was in Massachusetts at the time.” Josh gives her a skeptical look and she presses on. “Joe Shuster was Canadian.”
“Who’s he?”
“He created Superman.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. So they’ve had a couple of good inventors and creative minds. Not bad for a bunch of guys in igloos.”
Donna frowns at him. “Josh, they don’t live in igloos. You know as well as I do that living in Canada is pretty similar to living in the U.S.” - she pauses thoughtfully - “You know, except for the monkeys.”
The seatbelt light has come on again and she buckles up as the Captain details their approach on the overhead speakers.
“Monkeys?” Josh asks as he, too, buckles his belt. He hasn’t heard anything about monkeys… but then again, he’s only ever been in the airports and the Capitol and Canada is a pretty big country.
“Yeah,” Donna says, sounding surprised that he needs clarification. “Canada has an indigenous species of monkey, Cebus Canadianus, which lives in some of the more southern regions of the central provinces.”
“Oh yeah… sure,” Josh hedges, “I think I’ve heard of them. Do they… I mean, they just run free, right?”
“Yeah. Sort of like we have squirrels,” she says absently and Josh nods along. “Well, except that they’re apparently pretty crafty. In major cities like Toronto, they’ve been known to pick your pocket, so keep your hand on your wallet. Also, they’re kind of vicious. Most Canadian children have been bitten at least once by the age of five.”
Josh rolls his eyes as he finally catches on. “Okay, I see - you’re making a little joke, there. That’s cute; not funny but, you know… cute.”
“What put me over the top?” Donna asks as the plane lands, the touch-down sending minute shudders through his seat and body.
“The kids getting attacked,” Josh answers honestly, “The government wouldn’t put up with that without having a plan of action in place... and if the government was involved, I’d have known about it.”
“Right… but the idea of little monkey thieves didn’t tip you off at all?” Donna teases.
“Um… well, yeah, that too. Obviously,” he says and feigns interest in the announcement of the Captain’s well-wishes and thanks for flying Air Canada.
“Nice try,” Donna laughs as people begin to stand and make their way toward the exits, “You were buying it. You actually believed that a monkey might steal your wallet.”
“No, I didn’t,” Josh says, standing impatiently. Why does it always take so long for people to get off of a plane?
“Yes, you did. You believed me. You’re so trusting, Josh… like a naïve little deer.” She grins at him mischievously.
“Okay, that’s… enough. Let’s just drop it. No more Canadian trivia,” he says, craning his neck to see what’s taking so long. “What is going on up there? Follow the line and exit quickly, people - it’s not rocket science.”
Donna steps into the isle, then turns and gives him a reproachful look. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll lay off the fun facts about Canada” - he snorts but Donna presses on, ignoring his outburst - “the fun facts about Canada if you can manage to make it off this plane without complaining. And that includes the non-verbal stuff, like huffing and puffing and stomping your feet.”
Josh eyes the slowly moving line ahead of her and considers his position; there’s no way to make the people in front of them move faster and the wait will certainly seem longer if Donna is lecturing on the Hudson Bay Company… Turning back to Donna, Josh sighs and extends his hand. “Deal,” he says and they shake on it.
He actually does a pretty good job of keeping up his end of the bargain. He only rolls his eyes twice and he manages to keep his complaints to himself until they’ve not only disembarked, but also made it through customs and the luggage claim - at which point they are informed that their flight to Ottawa has been cancelled due to a blizzard… and all bets are off.
* * * * *
“It’s not even snowing!”
"I'm sure it's snowing in Ottawa, Josh."
"I can't... what kind of backwoods, incompetent... stop saying 'Cancelled'!"
"Calm down..."
"It's Canada, for God's sake; shouldn't they know how to deal with snow? I mean, call some Mounties, give them shovels and point them to the tarmac, how hard is that?"
“Josh -”
“This is insane. Stop saying ‘Cancelled’!” His pleas are punctuated by short, stilted bursts of movement as his arms fly through the air, drawing curious stares from the other travelers. Donna, slouched into a plastic chair in the terminal, plasters her frequently-used ‘yes, my boss is certifiable - please carry on with your business’ expression onto her face and tries her best to will away any security guards that might soon be alerted to the crazy, yelling man.
"I need you to take a deep breath, okay?"
“Stop saying ‘Cancelled’!” he yells, actually stomping his feet a little before stalking out a short circle in front of her.
“Josh!” she admonishes firmly, “The Departures Board can’t hear you. The security personnel, however, can… and they have a special little room for people who cause disturbances in airports!”
This doesn’t placate him exactly, but he must see the logic of her argument because he drops down into the chair beside her with a loud sigh.
Shifting in the uncomfortable airport chair, Josh lets his gaze slip over their surroundings while he works to deal with his familiar feelings of frustration at events that are out of his control. He knows it's silly to get worked up over this, especially since there is absolutely nothing he can do; it's not as though flashing a White House ID will make the airline supply him with a private plane - and even if it did, using his status like that has Congressional Hearing written all over it. But still, Josh finds it difficult to reconcile this knowledge with his current mood. Leo wanted him in Ottawa; ergo, he should be in Ottawa. For Josh, that's what matters and anything else is just an excuse. With another sigh, he turns his attention back to Donna to find her smiling softly at him before she stands, tossing her bag over her shoulder.
"Okay, let's go," she says, and sets out across the terminal. Josh, grabbing his own bags from the chair beside him, follows quickly, catching up to her in only a few strides.
"Where are we going?"
"Food court. I'm starving."
“Donna, I know you’re probably aching for a plate of Canadian bacon or something but do you really think your stomach should be the first priority at a time like this?”
“Yes. It’s lunchtime,” she says, barely sparing him a glance.
"Donna! We're stranded in the middle of nowhere! The President expects us in Ottawa and Canada is shut down because of a few snowflakes - which, by the way, is like D.C. shutting down because there are cars on Dupont Circle. We have more to worry about than your appetite." Josh struggles to dodge and weave through the flow of people who seem to part for Donna without accommodating him at all.
Donna shoots him a withering glance. "Okay. First off, the city of Toronto is the largest in Canada, with a population of 2.5 million and double that in the Greater Toronto Area. That means that more people live in Toronto than in the four Eastern-most Canadian provinces combined. In fact, it ranks fifth on a list of the most populous municipalities in North America. This city alone has twenty-two Municipal Ridings, the Canadian equivalent of a Congressional District. So it’s not like we’ve wandered into Brigadoon.”
“You say that now, Bonnie Jean, but just wait until we’re knee deep in corn fields and sheep.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re not growing corn at this time of year, Josh.”
Josh throws a sideways glare at Donna, but she's walking with a purpose, navigating her way through the airport with the zest and confidence of a guide, so she either doesn’t see it or just doesn’t bother to acknowledge it. His momentary lapse in attention does, however, nearly cause him to collide with a luggage cart that seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He dodges the obstacle at the last second, sliding a little on the tiled floor, and ends up walking on the other side of Donna. They move out of the restricted area and into a large hallway, flanked on either side by stores and eateries.
"Fine, there probably won’t be corn,” he says irritably as Donna walks over to an area full of tables nestled between five or six booths offering pizza, burgers and the like. “Just don't come crying to me when you need to use the bathroom and we’re hours away from civilization.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who needed Trevor to pull over on the way to Unionville. Twice,” Donna says, flashing him a teasing smile.
“You know what, Smart-mouth?” he says and Donna raises her eyebrows.
“What?” she asks sharply and the witty comment he was about to make dies on his tongue as he realizes that uttering it will only get him six long hours in a car with a very pissed off assistant.
“We... um… need to figure out where we can rent a car." Josh responds, clumsily diverting the conversation back to their current situation. He allows his bag to drop to the floor at his feet while he scans their surroundings.
Donna smiles slightly and lifts her chin, indicating with her eyes that he should look behind him. Turning to glance over his shoulder, Josh sees a Hertz booth not fifteen feet away.
"You rent the car, I'll get the food?" Donna asks.
"Fine," Josh says, swinging his bag over his shoulder again, "I want a burger and fries, okay?"
Donna nods, but doesn't quite make eye contact and Josh puts out his hand to stop her walking away.
"Wait. Are you nodding that, yes, you'll go get me a burger, or are you just confirming that you know I want one, while plotting to bring me back some vegan, health-nut, cardboard thing?"
Donna looks off to the right, teeth teasing her lower lip, before she brings her gaze back to him. "I do not plot."
"Donna!"
“Josh, all you’ve eaten today is a donut. You should have something healthy.”
“Donna, you and I both know that despite my love of red meat and donuts, I actually eat reasonably well. Some would say incredibly well, considering the fact that most of my meals come out of a take-out carton. I don’t eat fried, fatty foods every day of my life. I eat boneless, skinless chicken breast. I eat lentil soup. I eat whole wheat bagels and light cream cheese. And I eat lots of vegetables, even going so far as to order double broccoli when we get beef and broccoli instead of kung-pao chicken.”
Donna rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything because really, he does eat pretty well - and has the body to prove it.
Josh smirks and leans in closer. “But I want you to know, I’m on to you.”
Donna raises her eyebrow questioningly. “You’re on to me? On to what?”
“You complain when I want a burger not because you’re worried about my cholesterol levels, but because you like your burgers half-raw.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“You bring me salads and turkey sandwiches because if I get a burger, you can’t eat half my food.” He leans back, smiling triumphantly.
Donna glances around the food court, unwilling to admit that he might have a point. "Josh …"
"Just bring me back a burger like I asked. And if the Canuck in you is thinking of ruining my fries by getting that nasty cheese and gravy thing, keep in mind the trouble I can make for the likes of you with the INS."
“Cute,” she says sarcastically before heading off in search of something edible.
* * * * *
Balancing the tray in one hand, Donna makes her way to an elevated table in the centre of the food court and grabs condiments, straws and a handful of napkins. The room is abuzz with lunch-hour activity and there is a constant hum of conversation. People who have come to pick up family or friends chatter away, filling one another in on their lives; business travelers speak loudly and monotonously into their cell phones; and children run around in makeshift games of tag, yelping and laughing while their parents scold them and order them to settle down.
Making her way over to the table, she sees that Josh is having some success at renting a car; there must have been something available because he’s being led through what is almost certainly a contract by the young man behind the counter. Donna drops the food off on their table and walks the few remaining yards over to Josh, realizing that it’ll be much faster for her to fill out the necessary information - she’s had his credit card and driver’s license numbers memorized for years.
The Hertz employee is a good-looking young man, probably in his late twenties, with light brown hair and an easy smile. He looks up as Donna reaches the counter and his grin immediately widens.
“You’re sure there’s nothing better than a Corolla available?” Josh is saying, his gaze occupied by the paperwork that he has just begun filling out.
Dammit, Donna thinks. The last time that Josh ended up with a Toyota, she’d had to hear about the rental company’s failure to support American craftsmanship for most of the trip.
The man shakes his head at Josh absently but continues to smile at Donna.
“Bonjour,” he says softly, before catching himself and repeating, “Hello,” in a Québéçois accent.
“Bonjour,” Donna replies, glancing at his name tag, “Marc.”
Hmm. Given the way this young man is smiling at her, she might just be able to do something about their rental options.
“Puis-je vous aider… Madame,” he replies.
"Ah, non. M'appelez Donna, s'il vous plaît," she remarks, thanking God that although she was fickle in college, she enjoyed French enough to keep it up after high school.
"Donna, bien sûr - un très jolie nom pour une très jolie femme," Marc compliments her name as he leans forward onto the counter. Oh yeah, this is going to be easy.
Donna lets out a flirty laugh, drawing a curious glance from Josh who has apparently given up on the paperwork.
“J’ai besion d’une voiture, mais elle doit être un ‘Chrysler’,” she begins, specifically asking for an American-made car. She leans toward Marc who moves in a little closer as she whispers, “I have a… thing… for Chryslers.”
Marc grins at her and grabs a clipboard from under the counter. “Well,” he says, “it just so happens that we have a Chrysler 300 available. For - ” he offers her a seductive look, “special customers.”
Donna can see Josh bristle in her peripheral vision and gives him a nudge with her leg to keep him silent while she accepts the clipboard from Marc. When Marc turns to get the key, she glances at Josh and, with a pointed look and a tilt of her head, indicates that he should go wait at their table. He narrows his eyes at her and she widens hers, silently urging him to refrain from messing up the deal she’s brokered. Rolling his eyes and sighing theatrically, Josh finally acquiesces, leaving the counter just as Marc turns back around.
Once she finishes with the paperwork and gets the car keys, she joins Josh at the table. He’s already half-way through his burger as she takes a seat across from him. Donna unwraps her sandwich and begins eating, staring at Josh - but he’s apparently engrossed in his own food and doesn’t seem to want to talk. They finish their lunch in relative quiet before throwing out their trash and gathering their bags.
As they make their way through the airport to the parking garage, Josh breaks the silence, mumbling something under his breath.
“What did you say?” she asks as they step off the elevator.
“I said that Marc,” he says, emphasizing the French pronunciation, “is a jingoist.”
“What?” Donna asks, approaching the rental car and thumbing the unlock button on the keychain.
“He’s a jingoist. He told me that a Corolla was the best he could do,” Josh says, slipping into the driver’s seat.
“And that makes him a jingoist?” Donna asks, tossing their bags into the back before climbing in beside Josh and handing him the keys.
“Yes. He’s an anti-American snob.”
“Josh, that makes no sense. I’m just as…” she pauses for a moment before continuing, “Ah, okay. You’re making another one of your little ‘Donna-is-Canadian’ jokes. Can I expect an end to this in the near future? Because I have to tell you, you’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”
“First of all, my jokes are very funny,” he says, turning on the ignition and throwing the car into gear. “And secondly, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“I didn’t think so.” Donna replies forlornly as he steers the car toward the exit. “Though on the bright side, at least this is a good opportunity to get it all out of your system. I’d rather not be your straight-man for President Bartlet’s entire second term.”
“Donna, you’ve been playing my straight-man for five years - what makes you think it’s going to stop once I run out of Canadian jokes?”
“True enough.” She’s quiet for moment as Josh enters the code to allow them to exit the garage. As they drive out into the maze of on and off-ramps, Donna eyes the grey and clouded sky. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Ottawa if we run into a blizzard?”
“I don’t know,” Josh replies absently.
Donna grins as she turns to face him - if she’s going to play straight-man, she might as well go all out.
“Third base,” she says and Josh groans.
* * * * *
“One more.”
“Josh, I’m tired.”
They are two hours from the airport, Donna half-buried under a pile of papers as she goes through her notes to prepare for the next few days. Josh glances over, his eyes flickering back and forth between the road and her as she sets down the notes for a moment and gathers her hair up before twisting it into a makeshift bun which she holds in place with a spare pencil. He loves it when she does that. Her hair never stays that way for long - Donna has complained that it’s too fine - but while it’s up, it makes Josh smile. He likes the way the little strands escape in every direction as soon as she moves her hands away. He likes the fact that the bun is never centered and that little wisps of hair, too short to make it into the bun at all, curl slightly as they lie against her slender neck. It’s one of the most disheveled hairstyles he ever sees her wear, but that’s what he likes most about it. It’s a sign of comfort in her surroundings - that she lets herself look a little untidy - and Josh appreciates being one of the few to get to enjoy it.
“So, Leo’s going to talk to Sam?” she asks and Josh refocuses on the road.
“Yeah and he’ll have him call me later on, once they’re finished for the day. It’s mostly photo-ops and receptions today anyway.” Josh keeps his eyes straight ahead as Donna reaches for the radio, scanning the stations for something they’ll both like before settling on a classic rock station. “Come on, Donna, you’re doing really well. One more right will make ten in a row.”
“Is there some sort of prize at stake?”
“Like what?”
“A trip to Maui?”
“You don’t get a Hawaiian vacation by winning a game, Donna.”
“I don’t get a Hawaiian vacation at all, apparently.”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t so willing to give up when victory is within -”
“And I’m not sure this really qualifies as a game, Josh.”
He looks at her, slightly hurt. “Hey, you taught me this game!”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head, “No, no, no, no, no. I taught you Six Degrees of
Kevin Bacon. You took a fun, silly party game and twisted it into some weird, bastardized version of a Poly Sci final.”
“You like playing it, though,” he prods, looking over at her until she meets his eye. “Admit it.”
Donna fixes him with an admonishing stare but he pretends not to notice as he returns his eyes to the road. “Okay, fine, I like it. But only because I thirst for knowledge, Josh. I am insatiable in my quest for information.”
“And a collector of all things trivial,” he says, unable to resist teasing her, a little.
“Do you want to play or do you want to mock me?”
“God, that’s a tough one…”
“Josh.”
“I want to play because I’ve got a really good one.”
“All bills we’ve worked on in the past year?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, hit me.”
“Congressman Stevens to Congressman Kurtz.”
“Stevens of Iowa or Stephens of Texas?”
“Iowa.”
She sighs, tilting her head against the window as she considers the puzzle. Josh doesn’t speak again, letting her think. This one is pretty hard. He’d actually had to put some thought into it and he doesn’t expect her to be able to figure it out for at least five -
“Got it.”
Josh looks at her with some surprise. “Already? You don’t want to… I don’t know, phone
a friend or something?”
“There are no lifelines in Six Degrees of the U.S. House of Representatives, Josh. And even if there were, I don’t need to phone a friend because I know the answer. Stevens co-authored H.R. 353, the Domestic Violence Victims’ Relief Act, with Representative Collins from Oklahoma. Collins worked on the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act with Congressman Hartford. Hartford added a Paternal Consent Amendment to the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which was authored by Representative Jenkins. And Jenkins was on House Oversight with - drum roll please - Congressman Joseph Kurtz, Democrat of Pennsylvania.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“That was impressive. That only took you about three minutes.”
“I know.”
“You have a freakish ability to retain details.”
“I’m quite something.”
“Yes, a freak. Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah well, you made up this game, so who’s the bigger freak?” she asks, scratching
something onto the notes in her lap. “By the way - feel free to book the flight to Maui as soon as we get back to DC.”
He laughs a little and flicks on the wipers as the first flakes of snow begin to fall from the sky. It’s the heavy kind of snow; thick, wet snowflakes making dime-sized spots of water where they hit the glass.
This is the type of snow that always looks so romantic in the movies, he thinks cynically, when really, it’s only beautiful from a distance. When you’re in the middle of it, it’s just inconvenient; yet another example of fictional love bearing no resemblance to that in real life. As much as it looks like the epitome of romance for some Hollywood heartthrob to be standing in a blizzard, kissing the hell out of some girl as the snow falls all around them, Josh figures that what those people are actually feeling is… well, cold. And probably wet. He can think of much nicer ways to spend time with a woman than standing ankle deep in a snow drift, cultivating pneumonia. In fact, just being in this car is a thousand times better than -
Josh physically shakes himself out of his reverie, blaming that narrowly avoided train of thought on travel-fatigue.
Glancing over at Donna, he finds her watching him with a concerned expression.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Josh replies, forcing a cheerful tone, “Why do you ask?”
“You shivered a bit,” she answers as she continues to look him over.
“It’s, uh, a bit cold I guess,” he replies and she nods. He offers her a reassuring smile as she reaches out to adjust the temperature.
“Thanks,” Josh says, but he doesn’t really relax until she turns her attention back to her notes.
He spares a moment to look at her, careful to keep his mind blank, as she bites her lip in concentration. Smiling softly at the familiar gestures, Josh then returns his full attention to navigating the car through the already accumulating snow and sighs. If this doesn’t let up, it’s going to be a long, slippery ride to Ottawa.
* * * * *
“Admit it.”
“Josh…”
They’re standing at the door of a family owned diner at a rest-stop about an hour from Ottawa. Well, it would be an hour from Ottawa, if the storm hadn’t turned the roads into skating rinks immediately before covering them with another foot of snow all within the last ninety minutes. The few cars left on the road have slowed to a crawl as everyone creeps their way through the near-mountains of powder that the plows have yet to clear. The wind is blowing the snow on the road back up into the air, causing swirling funnels of white which have reduced visibility to almost nothing. That combined with the distinct lack of four wheel drive in the Chrysler had resulted in three close calls - two with snow-filled ditches and one with an oncoming truck - before Donna had insisted that they find somewhere to stop for the night.
And so here they are, fifty minutes and only four kilometers away from that decision, in the vestibule of Fran’s Eats & Treats, fortified by meatloaf specials and directions to the nearby Slumberland Hotel. They stand side by side, listening to the storm rattle the door in its frame, gearing themselves up for the trek through the ever deepening snow.
“Don’t ‘Josh’ me, Donna, I want to hear you say it.”
“I -”
“Say it.”
“But it -“
“Donna!”
“You won’t -“
“And don’t say I won’t let you because you and I both know that you were going to argue every one of those times. Now, admit it!” he prods and Donna throws him a dirty look.
Josh meets her gaze evenly and she sighs, eying the drifts that have formed along the side of the rental car, covering the bottom four inches of the wheels. Resigned, she turns back and looks Josh in the eye.
“Okay, fine. I admit it,” she says, narrowing her eyes as he smirks and gestures for her to continue. “We should have brought the snowshoes.”
* * * * *
“I’m just saying - he was unnecessarily hostile,” Josh says as he precedes Donna into the room, holding the door open wide so that she can enter - her arms are full, their bags wrapped around her like small moons in tight orbit.
Josh closes the door behind her then he walks the rest of the way into the room, shrugging off his overcoat and dropping it on a chair by the door before collapsing onto the bed. Donna arranges the suitcases in an out-of-the-way corner, then immediately picks up Josh’s overcoat, hanging it in the closet along with her coat and his garment bag.
“He wasn’t hostile until you were hostile,” she says, coming over and sitting on the bed. She toes off her shoes and leans back against the headboard.
Josh lifts his head off the pillow so that he can look at her. “I was not hostile. I was… firmly persuasive.”
“You called him a liar. You accused him of cutting the phone lines so that he wouldn’t have to report cash transactions to the government - the branch to which you were referring, by the way, is Revenue Canada and not ‘Canad-IRS’.”
“The ice-weighed-down-the-lines story is a little coincidental, though, isn’t it? No credit cards, just cash? And he was creepy. Beady little eyes, white eyebrows, yellow skin. I think he might be the Devil’s earthly guise.”
“Josh, you think everyone who disagrees with you is the Devil’s earthly guise.”
“No, I don’t.”
“At some point in the last four years, you’ve told me that half the Republican members of the House are the Devil’s earthy guise.”
“Yeah, but… that’s just common sense.”
“Of course it is, Josh,” she says, patting his shoulder as he lets his head drop back onto the pillow..
“Besides, he could have taken the Visa number and run it through when the lines are back up,” he continues.
“And he might have been willing to do that if you hadn’t accused him of tax evasion when he first mentioned that the phones were out of service.”
“It would have made him more money, since we only had enough cash for one room.”
“True, but he wasn’t inclined to do us any favors after your little outburst.”
“I still say he was lying. I mean, do you honestly think it’s likely that the phone lines went down hours ago, while the the power stayed on?”
“Josh!” she exclaims. “Don’t say things like that! You’ll jinx it.”
“Oh, come on, Donna. Exactly what kind of power do you think I yield?” he says and chuckles as she glances around warily. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
After eying the overhead light suspiciously, Donna finally breaks into a small smile. “Alright, fine. But let’s not push our luck, okay? I think we’ve had enough mishaps on this trip already.”
Josh smirks. “Afraid of the dark, are we?”
“Not so much afraid of the dark as afraid of the inevitable calamity that would result from the two of us staggering around in it. If the power does go out, we should make sure that only one of us is moving at a time.”
“Why?” Josh asks, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Because,” Donna says reasonably, “we’d probably bump into each other and knock ourselves unconscious or grope each other accidentally or something equally reminiscent of an episode of Three’s Company.”
Josh’s eyes widen slightly at the mention of groping and Donna feels herself begin to flush. The silence is awkward now and Donna struggles to think of something to say to get them back onto safe ground. Before she can think of anything though, the sound of Josh’s ringing phone breaks the silence. Donna jumps almost imperceptibly and the corners of Josh’s mouth twitch in amusement as he sits up and reaches into his suit jacket to liberate his cell.
“Josh Lyman… hey, Sam, how’s it going?” Josh begins and motions toward their bags. Donna relaxes as they slip back into their normal routine - she grants his unspoken request and fetches him the notes from Advance along with a pen and legal pad. Josh is focused on the call, voicing the occasional ‘uh-huh’ and ‘yeah’, and Donna assumes Sam is filling him in on the trip so far.
Once Donna has handed everything over to Josh, she raises an eyebrow, silently asking whether he needs anything more from her. Josh meets her eye and, shaking his head, gestures that he’s fine without her for now. Donna shivers, shifting uncomfortably; her pants are soaked below the knees from the snow - she needs to get warm. She walks over to her suitcase and fishes out her bag of toiletries along with some clothes to sleep in.
“Josh,” she says, speaking quietly but firmly, and his eyes focus on her, looking over the bundle under her arm. He raises his eyebrows questioningly. “I’m gonna go take a quick bath. Let me know if you need anything?”
Josh nods and waves her off as he turns his attention back to Sam. Donna walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her, not bothering to lock it. Part of her wonders whether this is because she knows Josh wouldn’t walk in on her or because she secretly wants him to… but she doesn’t allow the musings to surface to the forefront of her mind.
Donna leans over the bathtub, turning on the faucet and adjusting the temperature to her liking, the sound of the rushing water muting Josh’s voice completely. She digs through her bag, pulls out a bottle of green tea scented body wash and pours some under the tap as makeshift bubble-bath. Then she steps away from the tub, stripping off her clothes and laying them neatly folded on the counter. She finds a hair clip in the bag and secures her hair into a loose bun before sitting on the edge of the bathtub and swinging her legs over the side. Leaning forward to turn off the water, Donna slowly skims her feet along the surface, hissing as the heat stings her icy toes. As she waits for her feet to acclimate to the change in temperature, she scolds herself for being nervous.
She’s going to sleep with Josh tonight… so what? There’s only one bed and she’s not going to let him sleep on the floor - his back would be in five kinds of agony in the morning. It’s downright silly that she’s anxious about this at all. It’s just sleep - it’s not like anything is going to happen. She would never let it. As much as she wants Josh, wants to touch him and feel his body against hers in a decidedly un-boss/assistant-like capacity, she values their friendship too much to risk destroying it for carnal satisfaction. Not to mention the likelihood that her feelings for him are unrequited.
And anyway, it won’t be the first time they’ve slept alongside one another. They always seem to pass out propped against each other on Air Force One. And there were many times during the campaign when they’d all end up sleeping for precious, stolen fractions of an hour between strategy sessions and events; she, Josh, CJ, Sam and Toby lying in any combination on adjacent double beds in dozens of different Holiday Inns across the country, some of them clutching memos and polling data to their chests like security blankets. Not to mention the fact that she had slept on his sofa for the first week after he’d been discharged from GW so that she’d be within shouting distance if he needed something. A couple of times, she’d woken in his darkened living room, suddenly terrified that he’d gotten sicker or, God forbid, even died in the night while she wasn’t watching - and she’d stumble, half-asleep and panicked to his room, only to find him deeply asleep, face buried beneath his pillow, arm tucked protectively against his chest. On those nights, Donna would ease onto the edge of his bed, careful not to disturb him, and simply watch him sleep until the frantic beating in her chest had calmed.
Now, as she slowly lowers herself into the fragrant water, she resolves to keep her desires at bay. She will sleep beside him as his coworker and his friend - no differently than if she were Sam or Toby - and Josh will never suspect that there is anything more to her feelings for him. Donna leans back, submerging herself to her shoulders, and lets her mind wander, lulled by the indecipherable murmur of Josh’s voice in the other room.
* * * * *
“Wait, so you’re sharing a room?” Sam asks, his voice disbelieving.
“Yeah,” Josh answers distractedly, making some final notes on the legal pad.
“And you think this is a good idea?”
“I think it’s the only idea, unless I send her out in the blizzard to find an ATM.” Josh pauses, brow furrowing. “Why, you think it’s going to be a problem? There aren’t really any other options, except me freezing to death in the car, which, I think, would create a lot more bad press - not to mention that Mary Marsh would have material for a million jokes about me having no problem thawing in the afterlife.”
“I’m not worried about the PR side of it, Josh, I’m worried about you,” Sam says and Josh raises an eyebrow.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Sam sighs into the phone and pauses, seemingly hesitant to elaborate.
“Josh… I don’t want to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong. And I certainly don’t want to force you to talk about things you might not be ready to accept or even be aware of -“
Sam is cut off by the sound of Josh’s incredulous snort. “Josh?”
“I’m sorry,” Josh mutters, “I just… you really believe that I have no idea what people think?”
“What people think… with regards to what?” Sam sounds honestly perplexed and Josh isn’t sure whether he’s misunderstood the direction of the conversation or whether Sam is trying to give him enough rope to hang himself.
“Nothing, Sam. What were you going to say?” Josh says, deciding to play it cool.
Sam pauses a moment before confirming that Josh’s initial instinct had been correct. “It’s just… you and Donna… you’re not like other people.”
“We’re not?” Josh asks, feigning ignorance as to where this is going. After all, everyone seems to believe he’s completely oblivious to this… ‘thing’ that he has with Donna. Of course, everyone also seems to believe it’s their duty to make cryptic comments, scrutinize his behavior and form opinions on his life - a trend which he’s finding more and more intolerable.
“No. At least, you’re not like other bosses and their assistants.” Sam pauses, but Josh stays silent, wanting to see what, specifically, Sam has noticed and decided to harp on. “You guys… the way you talk to each other, the way you look at her, the things you know…”
That one confuses Josh and he speaks up. “The things I know?”
Sam sighs. “Josh, what’s Donna’s shoe size?”
“Nine and a half,” he answers promptly.
“And the last DVD she bought?”
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Josh replies, remembering that they had watched it together one Sunday, then spent weeks randomly inserting bits of dialogue into their daily interaction. He smiles at a memory of her referring to him as “a man of science” when he ordered duck at a Chinese restaurant, CJ and Toby fixing them with identical looks of bewilderment.
“And her allergies?”
“Pears and ragweed.”
“This is what I’m saying. I have no idea if Bonnie is allergic to anything. And try asking Toby for Ginger’s shoe size the next time you see him.”
“I think I’ll pass on that, Sam,” Josh remarks, picturing the look Toby would surely give him following an inquiry like that.
“You see my point, though, right?” Sam presses and Josh sighs. This is the closest anyone has come to saying ‘what’s this elephant doing in the middle of the bullpen?’ and Josh is eager to keep this conversation as vague as possible.
“Yes, Sam, I see your point.”
“And given that point, you don’t think that you’re putting yourself in a potentially volatile situation?”
“No, I don’t,” Josh replies firmly.
There is a moment of silence while Sam seems to consider what his friend has said, then - “I don’t understand. How can you think this isn’t at least a little bit risky?”
Josh stands and begins pacing back and forth across the room, keeping as far away from the bathroom door as possible. He lowers his voice so that there’s no way for Donna to be able to hear him.
“Sam, it’s not risky because it’s a non-issue,” he says, running his hand through his hair.
“It’s a non-issue?” Sam repeats, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“In spite of all the things we just talked about?”
“Yes.” Josh squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “No. Dammit, Sam - I’ve heard the rumors, okay? I know what people say about us. None of it is true.”
“Of course it isn’t, Josh. Everyone who actually knows you knows that.”
“Right. But the people who make up those rumors? The ones who say I’m a letch and Donna slept her way to her job? They don’t care what’s fact and what’s fiction. They’re going to say what they want whether we share a room or sleep in separate provinces. Because their minds have already been made up.”
“That’s true but -“
“No. No buts. What am I supposed to do, Sam? Stop talking to one of my best friends because some jackass on the Hill thinks that if I know her shoe-size I’m automatically sleeping with her?” He’s getting pissed off now, struggling to keep his voice down. The thing is, he knows that’s not what Sam is saying - but, dammit, it’s not fair. He shouldn’t have to worry about this unsubstantiated bullshit.
“Of course not, Josh, nobody is suggesting you do that. And I don’t care what those people think. That’s not why I’m mentioning this. I’m just worried that you’re putting yourself in an awkward position.”
“Sam, do you honestly believe… Do you really think I’d risk…” He’s so frustrated now that he can’t even finish the thought. Taking a deep breath, he changes tactics. “Sam, look…,” he says, his voice carefully devoid of emotion, “I understand your concern. But believe me when I tell you, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Sam responds apologetically, “Okay. I mean, I know that. I just wanted to… I don’t know. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“That’s all right. It just pisses me off, you know?”
“I have some idea, yes.” Sam answers, sounding amused. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. We’ll be on the road as soon as the plows do their thing.” Josh says.
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye, Sam.”
Josh flips his cell closed and tosses it onto the bedside table, then sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, trying to control the thoughts racing through his mind. He hates it when people try to talk to him about Donna. It drives him nuts, having to assure them that there’s nothing to worry about. Especially since he won’t allow himself to give much thought as to the reason why.
In fact, the closest he’s ever been to fully articulating it was one afternoon, a couple of years back when he’d been at home recovering after Rosslyn. He’d been flipping through a physics text book when he came across Heisenberg’s Theory and it just… spoke to him. He’d read that section and then reread it again. Four times in all before he put the book aside and went to make a sandwich.
“So measurement of either position or momentum makes the other factor indefinite,” Josh had mumbled to himself as he pulled some chicken and mayonnaise out of the fridge, “As though it’s the very act of determination that changes the features of the object.”
He had turned it over in his mind a few times while putting together his lunch. And it wasn’t until he was halfway back to the couch, food in hand, that it had hit him - he knew why that theory was so attractive to him, why the concept felt so right, so justified.
It was because of Donna.
He was aware that his friendship with Donna was unlike any other friendship he’d ever had - that there was something different, something special between them. And because their friendship was so important to him, he would never allow himself to seriously consider whether there might be the potential for anything more… because he was absolutely terrified that, simply by measuring, he might change the object.
Now, sitting on a hotel bed in Canada, Josh finds himself unable to keep from thinking about the momentum and position of particles as he stands up, shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it across his suitcase. As he pulls off his tie, he hears the bathroom door open behind him and turns to see Donna emerge, face flushed with heat and scrubbed clean of make-up. Her slender body is clad only in a pair of grey University of Wisconsin sweatpants and a plain cotton t-shirt and all thoughts of particle physics are shoved from his mind as he thinks to himself that she has, quite possibly, never looked so beautiful. Tearing his eyes away from her, he makes a show of collecting the papers he had strewn across the surface of the bed while he was talking to Sam.
“Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“Bathroom’s free if you want to… get changed or anything.”
“Right,” he says, glancing at her for a moment before going over to his bag and pulling out a toothbrush, a clean pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Then he heads into the bathroom to clean up.
Donna places her toiletries in her bag, followed by her dirty clothes, then takes out and hangs up the clothes that she will be wearing in the morning. That done, she takes out her cell phone, setting the alarm before placing it on the table on the side of the bed opposite to the one where Josh’s cell already sits. Turning on the lamp, Donna sits down cross-legged at the top of the bed, and is in the process of taking the clip out of her hair when Josh comes out of the bathroom wearing a faded Mets t-shirt and a pair of dark blue plaid boxers. While he takes his clothes and toothbrush over to the corner and drops them onto the growing pile on his suitcase, Donna allows her eyes to trace the shape of his body, her gaze lingering on his muscular arms and legs, normally hidden under his suit. She continues to watch him as he walks to the door to check the lock and then flicks off the overhead light before returning to the bed. He reaches up and pulls down the blankets on his side, sliding into bed beside her.
“Without internet access or a fax machine, there’s not much we can accomplish tonight,” he says, stretching back onto the mattress. “And we should try to get an early start in the morning - assuming the snow lets up enough for the roads to be cleared.”
“Well,” she says, “at least we’ll get a decent night sleep for once.”
Josh yawns. “I don’t think I’ve gone to bed before eleven since junior high but all that driving’s wiped me out.”
Donna reaches over to turn off the lamp and then crawls under the blankets, rolling onto her back.
“I think you forgot something,” Josh says, his voice close and quiet.
Donna turns her head towards the sound but she’s unable to see him in the near-complete darkness.
“What?” she asks, reviewing her mental checklist.
“Isn’t it customary to sing ‘O Canada’ before turning in for the night?” he jokes and Donna groans.
“Oh, for the love of… just go to sleep, Josh.”
“Seriously, if you want to watch Hockey Night in Canada or go curling or something, I promise to save you a spot in the bed.”
“Okay, enough. Put down the shtick; the horse is dead,” she says, lightly swatting him on the arm. She can feel his body shaking with laughter beneath her hand.
“Ow! Alright, alright, I’ll find something else to make fun of tomorrow. Even though I’m sure the President will be spouting enough trivia to set up hundreds of jokes, I’ll restrain myself for your benefit. Just remember that if you ever feel the urge to bring up the whole ‘monkey thieves plague the streets of Toronto’ thing.”
“I will. I’d just really rather not have Sam and CJ in on the teasing; one day of it was more than enough. Can we just put it behind us and never speak of it again?”
“Absolutely,” Josh replies.
“Good,” Donna says, relieved, “And thank you.”
They both lay still for a few moments and then Donna feels Josh shift. The mattress moves slightly as he repositions himself and she turns on her side to face him. As she settles, she feels his fingers brush hers. They don’t hold hands but neither breaks the contact, simply allowing their wrists and pinkie fingers to lie against each other, touching lightly. The gesture is inordinately soothing though, for all its lack of grandeur. Donna sleepily muses that their position - the careful, platonic contact giving disproportionate comfort - is somewhat representative of them on a deeper level. They’ve always been able to communicate a lot with only a little. Smiling to herself, Donna uses her free arm to pull the blankets tightly around her and burrows into her pillow.
“Goodnight, Josh,” she says drowsily, closing her eyes and allowing her body to relax.
“Goodnight, Donna,” he answers and she’s nearly asleep when he speaks again, his words coming to her across the divide of half-consciousness.
“Sweet dreams… eh?”
She doesn’t dignify him with an answer; now is the time to chase after sleep - although of course, tomorrow there will be plenty of opportunities to tell the President just how interested Josh is in discussing Canadian history and culture…
End