Josh Lyman approached his office door with understandable
trepidation. When he finally worked up the courage to enter, he was
greeted with the sight of his young assistant, Donna, glaring at his
computer from a distance of about four feet. She was dangerously,
frighteningly calm.
"Hi, Donna," he tried nonchalantly.
She raised one eyebrow and looked at him without moving. "Where have
you been?"
"Um, meetings?" he said, sounding uncertain. Off her skeptical look
he added, "Important meetings."
"Oh," she said sarcastically. "Well, while you were at your
'important meetings,' I was here, battling technology."
"How do you do that?" he couldn't help asking.
"Do what?" She was teetering on the brink of out-and-out rage and he
could see it coming. Somehow he couldn't help himself.
"Make it sound like I've been negotiating the price of coffee with
the vendor on the corner."
"Oh, I'm sure you were engaged in some thrilling discussion of great
national import," she fairly hissed. "Which is clearly why you can't
be bothered to update your files or save anything to disc - which I
would have done oh, sometime before nine PM on a Friday night except
that I've been busy stalling drunken Ukrainians!" Her voice had
risen to a pitch that could surely be heard out in the hallway - as
if
CJ, Sam, Carol, and probably even Ainsley didn't have their ears
pressed to the door anyway.
"Donna," he attempted, taking a conciliatory tone. It was the wrong
move.
"Don't Donna me, Joshua," she lectured sternly. "It's bad enough I
get used as a dupe whenever you need 'someone of absolutely no
consequence' - and don't think I've forgotten that one - but I do not
need to be here on a Friday night trying to undo your technological
ineptitude!"
He couldn't help it. He really couldn't. His eyebrows shot up.
"Wow, Donna, I hope you were angry when you took the SATs - it works
wonders for your vocabulary."
He ducked as a throw pillow flew at his head at an alarming speed.
He was beginning to worry. In their years of working together he had
honestly never seen Donna so angry. He wondered whether this had
been building for some time now, and had only come to a crux with his
admittedly harsh comments earlier in the week. It was already
apparent that teasing her out of her mood was not going to work - it
seldom did, really, only made her sulky - nor was being nice to her.
Josh chose to shout.
"Then what are you still doing here, huh?" he asked forcefully,
taking a step back from her. "It's Friday night, your work here is
done. You're my assistant; I no longer require assistance at this
time. Get out, go home." She froze and he stepped back again,
gesturing toward the door. "Go on, go!"
"So that's really all I am?" Donna asked, no longer shouting exactly
but in a much higher pitch than usual. "A glorified secretary?
Thanks Donna, but you've outlived your usefulness for the day, you're
dismissed? That's it?"
"Is this about carpal tunnal syndrome?" he asked. It was definitely
the wrong move.
"This is not about carpal tunnal syndrome," she replied quietly and
tightly. "This is about you and me and our working relationship, and
the fact that after three years you still see me as a piece of office
furniture."
"You know that's not true," he said angrily.
"Prove it," she retorted. "Take me seriously, just once. Do you
know how often you do that? Do you? Never!" She was almost back to
throwing things, and he cringed in advance. "Do you ever even
pretend to listen to me? Has it ever really occurred to you that I
might have something intelligent to say?" She was being at least
slightly unfair, and she knew it. She knew that Josh did listen to
her, and the worst part was that deep down she knew he did value her.
That made his complete inability to show it all the worse.
"Donna," he interrupted, "I listen to you all the time. I listened
to you when you were. . ." He stopped speaking suddenly. His mind
knew that he looked ridiculous, that only people in bad movies
trailed
off like that when they had something dramatic to say, but he
couldn't
help himself. He literally could not voice the thought in his head.
He was too angry, too - something.
But she knew. She knew immediately what he was thinking, because she
had been thinking the same thing herself from the other point of
view. When she spoke, it was almost in a whisper. "How could you go
back to the way things were after that?"
His mind flooded with images: Donna sitting beside his bed in the
hospital, chattering on as always - except that when he'd really
looked at her he'd seen the red-rimmed eyes, the tears waiting to be
shed, the exhaustion and the misery. Donna in his apartment the day
he'd come home and all the days after that, driving all the way from
the White House to have lunch with him and catch him up on the doings
of the office. Donna keeping other visitors at bay like a mother hen
watching out for hawks. He'd seen her actions as the behavior of a
concerned, if perhaps slightly overenthusiastic assistant. But then
there was the night she'd let him outside, let the others come over.
That night they were all just friends, and if anyone noticed that
Donna was the only assistant present they didn't mention it. In
fact, it was silently acknowledged that Donna had the power over the
small gathering. That night, after everyone else had left and she'd
fussed over him for another few minutes, making tea and checking
everything fifty times, she'd suddenly turned and looked at him and
her eyes had filled up. She'd rushed at him the way she had the
previous Christmas after reading his message, thrown both arms around
him and hugged him tightly. He'd been surprised, since even after
he'd come out of surgery she'd refrained from such strong displays of
affection. Pleasantly surprised, as he had been at Christmas. After
all, he had a great deal of affection for Donna - he always had.
He'd
hugged her back that night, soothing her tears even as he closed his
eyes and reveled in the warm human contact. They'd stood that way
for
a long time.
He looked again at his furious assistant and noticed that her eyes
had begun to tear up. He had the feeling she wasn't going to hug him
this time.
"Things aren't the same, Donna," he said gently but sincerely.
"You're right. They can't be. But I had to pretend they were." He
swallowed and added, "I think I'm trying too hard."
She shook her head. "I don't understand, you've lost me." Her tone
was harsh and ironic, but her voice trembled.
"When I was hurt," Josh began tentatively, "you were always there.
You were the one who made sure I was still alive day to day. It may
have just felt like you were fetching lunch and doing my laundry, but
I needed you more than I've had to need anyone in a long time. Can
you understand that after that I needed to get back to normal?"
"Normal?" she echoed, unconvinced. "Normal is being cruel? That's
normal to you?"
"I wasn't trying to be cruel!" he nearly shouted. "I was trying to
put some professional space between us because I was uncomfortable
with the fact that my assistant had to lift me off the couch for two
and a half months and then I had to go back to being her boss and try
to stop feeling helpless! I was trying not to need you twenty-four
hours a day!"
She was caught and she knew it. Her anger had been replaced by a
deep-looking sadness. "It wasn't enough to convince yourself you
didn't need me; you had to convince both of us?" she asked quietly.
"Never mind, don't answer that."
"Donnatella . . ."
"Don't." She held her hand up as if to ward him off, but the tears
started to overflow her eyes. "I am not going to do this," she said,
more to herself than to him.
He saw that he was close to winning, if only he could say exactly the
right thing. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't," she repeated helplessly, turning away from him and wiping
angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Just leave me alone
to behave like a child in peace, please."
"You're not behaving like a child; I was," he said gently. "You know
what a selfish jerk I am. I really just thought it was business as
usual around here. Really. I did. See what an idiot I am without
you to keep me straight?"
Her shoulders heaved as she choked for air. "I always knew that,"
she said in an almost normal tone.
He smiled but carefully didn't laugh out loud. Instead he crossed
the room slowly. "I never asked," he said softly, "if you were okay.
I was so glad you weren't there to be physically hurt that after all
these months it never occurred to me . . ."
There was a long pause. He didn't move.
"I was terrified," Donna whispered finally. He put a hand on her
shoulder and she jerked away. "Don't. I don't need to be comforted,
Joshua. It's over. What I need is your respect."
"You have that," he said - sadly? To his very great surprise there
was a lump in his throat. He hated having Donna mad at him, but he'd
come into the office feeling a bit amused at his eccentric
assistant's latest antics. What an idiot he'd been. And the worst
of
it was that he had no idea how to get back what they'd once had.
"Donna," hesaid. She turned around, shock in her eyes.
He knew why, but he couldn't explain because he was just as shocked.
Her name had come out on a sob, a heavy choking explosion that was
followed by tears he hadn't shed the entire time of his recovery.
For a moment Donna could do nothing but stare in horror.
When it became clear that she was frozen, he knew he had to try to
say - something. Anything. "I don't know what to do," he stammered
through his tears. "I don't want to condescend to you, or ignore
you, or hurt you - but I'm a selfish person and I need you. You're
not a glorified secretary, you're my friend and I need you. And I
don't even know why in the name of God I'm crying!"
She laughed, sort of. She took one tentative step forward, then
seemed to reconsider. "Oh, hell," she said finally and wrapped her
arms tightly around him.
He held onto her for dear life, trying to regain control of his
breathing. "I'm sorry," he whispered, stroking her fair hair gently.
"I'm sorry for the way I've been, sorry for yelling at you, sorry
for the drama . . ."
She did laugh at that. "Okay, I'll take responsibility for some of
the drama."
They pulled back and looked each other in the eye. "Are you okay?"
Josh asked, brushing tears from her cheeks with his thumb.
She nodded, visibly trying to collect herself. "You?"
He nodded. "Actually, I'm surprised it's taken us this long to have
that out."
"Should I have thrown myself weeping on your bed when you first woke
up?"
He was glad to see her smile. "Yes, I think that might have helped.
But, as I recall, you did bring me coffee once. I guess I should
have taken that as a sign."
"Nah, I just thought they were going to fire you while you were
down," she retorted quickly.
"If you really thought they were going to fire me you'd have put
sugar in it."
"You were out."
"Donna, you were doing the shopping."
"I got the coffee, didn't I?"
"Sugar would have killed you?"
"Skis would have killed you?" she replied, grinning broadly.
"Yes!" he exclaimed.
"Okay."
He turned toward the door. "Sam, Claudia Jean, Carol, and God help
you Ainsley if you're out there, this is your one-minute warning to
get away from the door before it hits you in the face."