Title: Navigation Assistant
Timeline: Picks up where Celestial Navigation ends.
JOSH
There's a part of the story I didn't tell you. I can't. Trust me, it doesn't
involve...
I-I-I just can't right now. Ask me back again after the Senate confirms
Mendoza.
You really should hear it, it's a good story.
NESSLER
Why don't we take some questions?
JOSH
Yeah.
Josh turns to his audience.
Donna listened to the Q & A with half an ear. What she really enjoyed at
the moment was watching Josh without him being aware of her presence.
There was a great freedom in that for her. She didn’t have to hide what
she felt for him, or worry about looking at him for too long, she could just
soak it all in. There was no doubt that the students gathered there found
him charming; she could tell by the laughter and the appreciative looks he
was getting from the female audience members.
Then a question caught her interest.
“Mr. Lyman, what is the hardest part of your job?”
“Remembering to edit my thoughts before they come out of my mouth.” He
said wryly, which caused chuckles all around. “Perhaps some of you are
familiar with my assertion that the God the Christian coalition prays to was
busy being indicted for tax fraud? Which, in retrospect, was a very ill-
advised remark to make. It was totally true, but again, should have been
edited…a lot. Then there was my secret plan to fight inflation that I told
you about this evening. Honestly, it happens to me a lot.”
“Then what do you do in those situations?” the moderator asked.
“I go to the one person in the White House that I trust without reservations;
Donna Moss, who is my senior assistant.” Donna blinked at his answer.
“Don’t let the title fool you. She is, as she is constantly telling me, the
Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff. I couldn’t do my job without her.”
“Do you plan to run for office yourself one day?” another student asked.
“I’ve learned to never say never, but I can’t conceive of a circumstance
where I would even be tempted to run for office. Due to my internal editing
problems, I think it’s best for everyone that I stay behind the scenes as
much as possible.”
“That’s all the time we have for tonight. Please join me in thanking White
House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman for his time and information.”
The moderator requested and the audience gave him a standing ovation
which Josh, quite uncharacteristically, responded to quite modestly. He
shook hands with the moderator and stopped to sign a few programs from
students on his way up the aisle of the theater. Donna continued to watch
him, so transfixed by the proceedings that she didn’t realize it was too late
to sneak out before he saw her.
Well, he was still surrounded by students. Maybe if she sat very still, he
wouldn’t notice her. She was not so lucky. When he got within 10 feet of
her row, his head shot up and he looked directly at her like he could feel
her presence there. Spooky, Donna thought. He appeared surprised to
see her and then…his trademark smirk came out.
“I thought you had plans tonight and couldn’t come?” he drawled. The
students surrounding him looked curiously back and forth as the banter
continued.
“My…plans ended early.” Donna countered.
Josh made a show of looking at his watch. “Before 9:00? What, did he
have a curfew or something?” he teased.
“Maybe he was called into work to perform emergency surgery.”
“So, he’s a Republican then. Nice. Well, if at first you don’t succeed…” he
said with a smile to let her know he was kidding.
“I was going to tell you what a nice job you did tonight.”
“But now?” Josh teed it up for her.
“Now, not so much. Obviously, the charm was just a façade that you can
only hold together for a short period of time in front of a large, adoring
audience.”
Some of the students let out a quiet, “Ooooooh.”
“Which you are never are part of.” Josh replied, referring to the adoring
audience comment.
“Never.” Donna agreed to help cover for herself.
“Thanks guys, have a great night.” Josh dismissed the gathering of
students with the not too subtle hint. They wandered away slowly as Josh
sat next to Donna, but they kept turning back to observe the woman who’d
captivated the man they’d been fawning over all evening.
“Emergency surgery?” he repeated.
“I couldn’t very well say I came to run interference for you because the
President’s nominee for the Supreme Court was arrested.” Donna replied.
“No. That would be bad, but you should have let me know you were here.”
He complained.
“My intention was to get here early enough to get your cell phone from
you so I could take the calls from Sam and Toby while you were onstage,
but you were just walking onstage when I got here. Sorry.”
“That’s not the problem. The problem is that now you heard me say nice
things about you in front of a large group of witnesses and your ego is
going to swell to the size of mine. We’ll never fit in the same office space
again.” He quipped and made her smile. “Now that Mendoza is out of jail
and I’m done making a fool of myself here, I’m starving. Want to join me for
burgers, fries, and a beer?”
“Burgers and a beer sound good, but fries are too fattening.” Now Donna
teed it up for him.
“So, I’ll just order them and you can eat them off my plate?” Josh
confirmed.
“If they’re not on my plate they’re not mine and no calories will be gained
by them.”
“You see what’s sad about that statement, is that I actually understood it.”
Josh stood up and took her hand to pull her out of her seat too. “Let’s go.”
They decided on a bar and grill nearby so they chose to just walk the few
blocks there. They enjoyed a comfortable silence and Donna reveled in
the act that Josh’s arm was wrapped around her shoulder.
“So…signing autographs? Are you a rock star now?” Donna teased.
“Some even took my picture.” He rejoined.
“Quite a heady experience.” She commented.
“Don’t worry, I have a senior assistant who will pop my bubble as soon as I
walk in tomorrow.”
“Still, it must have been hard to walk away from all those willing and eager
co-eds.”
“I can’t help who is drawn in by my considerable magnetism, Donna.
Besides, you shouldn’t be concerned about who came to see me tonight.
Look who I chose to leave with.”
“Ah-kay.” Donna did a fairly good impression of her boss and made him
smile.
They ordered their food, but the beer came first so they both took an
appreciative sip. “It was interesting to hear you talk about your work as
floor manager for the House Minority Whip. You never talk about those
days much.” Donna noted and Josh shook his head.
“I don’t like to relive that time period much.” Josh admitted.
“Why not?” Donna asked curiously. Josh seemed almost self-conscious
about it and she rarely saw that reaction from him.
“He was a good Congressman and he’d been a member for a couple
decades when I went to work for him. He didn’t talk a lot when he was off
the House floor, but he watched constantly. I felt like I was always under a
microscope, you know. He wouldn’t say much, but every once in awhile he’
d give me some advice or tell me why some other guy’s bill was crap. I
learned a lot.”
“Then why don’t you like to relive that period?”
“It’s also the time period where I screwed up the most. On top of being
very quiet for a Member of Congress, he was also a big advocate of the
‘you learn from your mistakes’ school of thought. He would see me do
something or say something stupid but instead of warning me, he’d let it
blow up in my face. If you think you’re busy apologizing or me these days,
you should have seen me then.”
“That sounds like a hostile work environment.” Donna noted.
“It really wasn’t.” Josh countered. “After the blow up he’d sit me down and
ask me what I learned and how I’d do it different next time; because, he
would tell me, in politics there’s always a next time. Although personally, I’
m not sure that’s true. He was a very good teacher, but I made some
doozies when I was working for him.”
“So Joshua Lyman isn’t allowed to make mistakes?”
“No, I’ve just hit my limit on the mistake front.” Josh said simply. Donna got
the feeling there was more to his answer than he was letting on, but let it
go for now. “How did you hear about Mendoza?”
“C.J. told me.” Donna explained. “Then I thought the last thing you needed
was to be fielding calls from Sam and Toby while you were doing the thing
tonight, so I came over to handle the phone.”
“Donnatella to the rescue.” Josh smiled.
“I believe you said you couldn’t do your job without me.” Donna shot back.
“I was just trying to make you feel better.”
“You didn’t even know I was there.”
“I felt you.” Josh insisted.
Donna laughed outright.
“What? You think you’re the only one of us tuned in to the other?” He
asked.
“You’re saying you’re tuned to me?” Donna was laughing too hard to take
a drink. “Since when?”
“Since Nashua.” Josh insisted. “Who else would hire you with the story you
gave me?”
“Joshua!”
“I’m just saying there was a connection, even on that first day.”
Donna sobered a bit. “Yes. Yes, there was.”
Josh was surprised by her immediate and sincere response. “Sometimes, I
wonder what brought you into my office on that day at that time.”
“I brought me to your office on that day at that time. I chose your office
though because it looked like you were the one in most need of some
organizational help, so I figured you’d be the most desperate member of
the staff.”
“You never told me that.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you tell your prospective boss during a job
interview.”
“I suppose not.”
“I’ll tell you something else I’ve never told you before, but only because
you said such nice things about me tonight.”
“What is that?” Josh leaned closer to hear her better.
“When I heard Governor Bartlet talk about why he wanted to be President
and what his vision for the country was during that debate, I wanted to do
something to help get him elected.”
“I know the feeling.” Josh added.
“But it was the post debate spin that had me driving to Nashua. You came
on TV all full of fire and energy telling me that each of us could make a big
difference in who got elected to the highest office in the land. You talked
about the grass roots support in New Hampshire; how people would just
walk in from the street to volunteer whenever they had time free. That was
what made me believe I could drive to Nashua and join the campaign.”
Josh smirked. “Then it’s only fair you ended up in my office.”
“Or else it’s some form of cosmic retribution.” Donna teased.
Their food arrived and Josh turned his plate so his fries were closest to
Donna. She smiled in acknowledgment as she grabbed a couple. Josh
shared how Toby had called during his thing tonight to ask what exit to
take to get to Wellesley.
“Then he started giving me shit about the whole secret plan to fight
inflation. Can you believe that?”
“Well, it was pretty funny.” Donna admitted.
“You think so, do you?” Josh moved the fries further away from her.
“I meant, it was funny to them!” Donna back pedaled reaching for the fries.
“Sam and Toby thought it was hilarious, those fiends, I didn’t find any
humor in it at all of course.”
“Yeah.” Josh rolled his eyes, but did move the fries back within her reach.
They finished their meal and ordered a second beer. Josh talked about
the group that had assembled that night. He told her how much he
enjoyed talking to college students about politics and that one day he
could see himself teaching full time.
“I could see you doing that.” She agreed. “Would you need an assistant in
that scenario?”
“Certainly, but you will have moved on to bigger and better things way
before that.” Josh surmised.
“Like what?” Donna asked, curious to see how he saw her future.
“I imagine Wisconsin could benefit from a representative with your
experience and intelligence.”
“Are you kidding me?” Donna nearly spit out her beer.
“No, I’m not kidding. In fact, I’ll come run your campaign.” Josh promised.
“And you’d just drop your teaching to come to Wisconsin?”
“For you, I would.” Josh said sincerely.
“Thanks.” Donna replied. “Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you mean when you said you’ve hit your limit on making
mistakes?”
“See, that’s what I mean about your potential as a politician. You glean an
interesting remark from someone across the table, but you don’t use it
right away. You wait for just the right relaxed, unsuspecting moment, and
then you drop it on them.”
“And that was a nice bit of misdirection, but you didn’t answer my
question.”
“I don’t really-“ Josh began.
“You don’t have to answer me, Josh, but don’t treat me like a
Congressman you can fool into thinking you’ve answered my question
when you haven’t.” She took a breath. “Do you enjoy doing these types of
lectures? It looked like you were having a lot of fun with it.”
“That’s it? You just change the subject?” Josh asked suspiciously.
“I’m not going to force you into a topic you don’t want to discuss. I just
thought since you’ve brought it up with me before and you told a lecture
hall full of people that you trust me without reservation, you might be okay
talking about this compulsion you have to fix everything and beat yourself
up when, inevitably, you can’t.”
Josh paused and sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Donna.”
“I think the mistake YOU think is unforgivable, was one from years before
you ever stepped foot on the Hill. And it wasn’t even your mistake. You
were just a kid, Josh.”
“Was one of the 10 majors you had in your 2 years of college mind
reading?” Josh asked in wonderment, unable to figure out how she could
read his very thoughts.
“I’m just tuned to you.” She smiled sadly.
“I…”Josh had to pause to clear his throat. “My sister… Joanie…I will never
get over losing her. Intellectually, I can rationalize that an eight year old
could hardly save his older sister given the circumstances. If I had gone
back for her, I imagine we’d both have died. The truth is that at the time, I
was too scared. I ran out of the house and saw the flames engulf the
house and I was simply paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move.”
“How long was it before your parents got there?” Donna asked quietly.
“I’m not sure. It seemed like a long time. A couple neighbors came out and
waited with me. One of them tried to get me to go with her into her house,
but I insisted on waiting for Joanie. I’d left her behind once. I wasn’t going
to do it again. I refused to move until my parents came and took me to the
hospital with them. She was pronounced dead shortly after we got there. It
wasn’t the fire; it was the smoke that killed her. They tried everything but
she’d gone without oxygen for too long.” Josh told the story
dispassionately, like it had happened to someone else, but Donna knew
better. It was just his defense mechanism kicking in; trying to keep his
emotions from being overloaded. She put her hand on his arm and rubbed
up and down.
“The fire investigators came the next day and asked me a lot of questions,
but I couldn’t answer many of them. I just kept asking when they were
going to bring Joanie home.”
Donna’s eyes overflowed with empathetic tears. “That’s an awful lot for
one little boy to deal with.” She managed. “An awful lot for a grown man to
try to make up for.”
“I asked her for the popcorn, Donna. I told her if she didn’t make it for me I’
d tell Mom she’d been on the phone for an hour with a boy. My last words
to her were threats about telling on her.”
“Which is pretty typical sibling behavior.” Donna pointed out.
“It doesn’t change the fact that she was making the popcorn for me. It
doesn’t change the fact that I ran out without even trying to find her.” Josh
maintained. “It doesn’t change any of the facts.”
“No, nothing does.” Donna agreed. “Not making the impossible happen for
President Bartlet, getting Leo’s approval, or giving up an NSA card.”
Josh did a double take. “How did you know about that?”
“I’m tuned-“
“to me, right. Seriously Donna.”
“Somebody, who shall remain nameless, overheard your conversation with
the President and Leo, and it was all around the room before the chili was
gone.” Donna explained.
“Nice to know the rumor mill is alive and well in the West Wing.”
“Oh, it is.” Donna confirmed. “You should hear some of the rumors about
us.” She teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“About us?” Josh’s voice squeaked.
“Uh-huh. Apparently there are several theories about our relationship.
One holds that we’re secretly married and have been since Nashua and
that Mandy was just a beard. Another purports that we’re having a
clandestine, blistering affair right under Leo McGarry’s nose. Yet another
claims that we live together in one of the basement offices and that’s how
we manage to stay here so late at night and arrive so early in the morning.
Can you imagine?”
“Uh…no?” Josh hedged.
“As if the security tapes and background checks couldn’t easily dismiss
the preposterous stories.” Donna scoffed.
“Preposterous? It would be preposterous that you might be involved in a
relationship with me?” Josh asked, offended.
“God, Josh, we spend all our time at the White House, when would we
have time for a lukewarm affair let alone a blistering, clandestine affair
under Leo’s nose?”
“If I was having an affair with you, Donna, I’d make the time, it would be no
clandestine relationship, and you better believe it would be a blistering.”
Josh warned.
“And when Leo found out?” Donna asked.
“Well then we’d both be unemployed and I could start in on that teaching
career.” Josh stated.
“You’d be finished in politics.” Donna pointed out.
“It would be worth it.” Josh told her and Donna caught her breath. “At least
I think it would.”
“It might.” Donna tentatively agreed.
They just looked at each other silently until the waitress broke the spell.
“Can I get anything else for you tonight?”
“No thanks.” Josh replied without looking at the waitress. “I’ll follow you
back to your place.” He told Donna.
“You don’t think I can drive home from here?”
“I have all kinds of faith in your driving ability, it’s your crappy car I worry
about. Come on.”
They walked back to her car, Josh’s arm once again around her shoulder,
but this time there was a kind of electricity between them. Josh opened the
car door for her and promised to be right behind her. She didn’t move until
he was inside his car and ready to go.
Josh followed closely behind her, as if his proximity could keep her safe.
He had no idea that her hands were shaking on her steering wheel just as
much as his were. But he finally felt he had enough confidence to find out
what they really were to each other; or at least what they could be.
She pulled into a space about a block from her apartment and her heart
jumped up a little more when he parked behind her and got out of his car.
He took her hand and walked with her to the door of her building. When
she used her key to open it, he continued inside with her.
“Thanks for coming tonight…and for taking those fattening, salt infested
fries off my plate. You probably saved my life.”
“I do what I can.” Donna replied; too nervous to say any more.
He walked up the stairs next to her, his hand on her lower back. They
were almost to her door when her courage, bolstered by their
conversation earlier, gave her thoughts words.
“Would you like to come in for awhile?”
Josh shook his head but held her gaze with his. “I don’t think so. I have a
meeting first thing in the morning to prepare for.”
“I don’t remember a meeting on your schedule. Who is it with? What’s it
about?”
Josh leaned closer until his lips lightly brushed hers once, then twice. He
moved back a bit to see her reaction. Her eyes were half closed and she
leaned towards him as he leaned back. “It’s about that, and it’s going to be
with Leo. Are you okay with that?”
Instead of answering verbally, she pulled him to her by his lapels and
planted a kiss on him that made his toes curl. When they came up for air,
he couldn’t resist teasing her.
“So, is that a ‘yes’?” he asked with a smirk and she nodded happily. “Is
Donnatella Moss speechless? How about that? One kiss from me and the
effervescent Donna Moss can’t speak.” Donna let her fist do the talking
and punched him in the arm. “Ow!”
“Don’t snark me, Joshua Lyman, or that will be the last kiss you ever get
from me. Now come inside.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But this concerns me too, and I think it would be wise to get my input on
this.”
“You don’t think I can do this on my own?”
“Remember what you said tonight about your self editing skills?” Donna
reminded him.
“Oh. Yeah. Okay, let’s get to work then.” Josh followed her in and they
began to lay out their case to an imaginary Leo.
Josh preferred this kind of work to the political work they did together,
because when he came up with a good point, the reward that Donna gave
him was far superior to what he received from work.
The End.