Rating: PG-13 (parts 1, 2, & 4) NC-17 Part 3
Archive: Sure, but let me know.
Summary: Further exhibits are revealed with a pint of Häagen-Dazs vanilla fudge swirl thrown in for good measure.
Spoilers: Specific references to 17 People as well as other previous episodes.
Disclaimers: Aaron Sorkin owns them all.
Date: 4/09/01
Notes: My first smut-fic! Yay!
Jeds Winner: Third Place -- Outstanding Characterization of Donna
Right Now:
I'm sitting on Josh, well, kind of sitting on him. I have one leg sprawled across his lower thighs, the other leg is bent and pressed up against his hip. I lean in to kiss his brow and I hear him make a happy-grunty sound that makes me smile.
The absurdity of what Josh and I just did along with the where we did it is too much and much to my horror, I start laughing again. Josh opens his eyes and looks at me, an amused, lop-sided grin on his face.
I shift so that I'm in his lap and straddling him. "I'm kinda messy here, Donna," he says apologetically.
"Don't care."
"'Kay."
His arm reaches around me and starts to move in small circles across my back as I press closer to him and rest my head on his should, breathing him in.
I bet you're wondering how this happened, huh?
***
Yesterday:
"So the thing, in Wisconsin.."
"Yeah?"
"I'm thinking we send Josh out there."
"Why?"
"Well, I sure as hell don't want to go", Leo paused while the president chuckled, "Someone needs to meet with Falk, I want to give it to Josh."
"Ahh, punishment. What did he do now?"
"That I know of? Nothing, but I'm sure he deserves it for something..."
"What did Wisconsin do now?"
Leo laughs again and shakes his head, "Actually, I was thinking of Donna."
"Donna?" President Bartlet looked up surprised from the stack of papers he was signing, "Did Donna do something?"
"Nah, she's from Wisconsin. I had Margaret check with personnel and Donna is from Waukesha, her parents are still there, which is right by.."
"Milwaukee and the 5th congressional district?"
"Right, I just figured while Josh is meeting with Falk, Donna could see her folks. She didn't get to go home this year for Christmas or anything, she was busy holding Josh together, so.."
"Leo, that's an excellent idea."
"And any punishment our Deputy Chief of Staff gets out of the process is just a bonus."
Both men shared a smile as they waited for the senior staff members to start filing in for the morning meeting.
***
"Donna!"
"Donna!"
I hear the bellows while I'm walking back from the coffeemaker. I could run, but, yeah right, like I'm going to run. I could yell back but, nope, don't think so. Let the man deal...I'm not a trained monkey.
"Joshua?" I ask, giving him what I hope is a cool look as I set my coffee down at my desk and walk over to where he's standing in the doorway.
"Where were you?"
"In St. Bart's working on my tan."
I get a grumbled noise and a look of exasperation.
"I really don't need this right now, this is all your fault." He turns and walks back into his office.
My fault? What is my fault? I start to stomp after him. Wait, I may need my coffee for this, I turn back, grab it, and follow him back to his office.
"What, pray tell, is my fault?" I end my question with a very obvious, snooty sip of my delicious coffee beverage. Ughsgd. Toby made coffee. Bonnie and Ginger know not to let him within six feet of the coffee maker.
I swear, all you have to do is grind on a pre-ground setting, put the filter apparatus in its slot, and hit a button and voila, coffee starts coming out; it is so not rocket science.
But here's what Toby does. He hits the grind button. Sam comes to ask a question, Toby answers, then can't remember if he hit the button. A normal person would check to see if any coffee has been ground. Notice how I said normal person? Right.
So Toby hits grind again. Then maybe he remembers something he has to go ask CJ; he comes back five minutes later, bitching under his breath how no one makes any coffee around this 'nut house' -- no one does anything and he has to do it all himself, how he's surrounded by incompetents... He hits the grind button again. Well, you get the idea.
The coffee in my mug is not delicious. In fact, if delicious is over here, then this coffee is 5000 feet to the right, then maybe down a flight of stairs, and then buried about 50 miles under the ground, in an old rusty container which is also holding radioactive waste. I swallow what's in my mouth in one hideous gulp -- but I do it all with a blank stare on my face.
"How dare you bring your coffee into my office, Donna." He says with a mocking tone and a grin.
I give him my best demure smile, "It's for you, Josh."
"That's why you poured it into your 'So many men, so few who can afford me.' coffee mug?"
It was a gag gift from one of my sisters, you'd really have to know her to understand, it's pretty funny actually -- I keep the cup at work because I know it irritates Josh.
I hold the mug out to him with what I hope is a suitably subservient and demure expression.
"Toby made coffee didn't he?"
Damn, he knows me too well.
"What do you want?" I ask, as I put the mug down on the end of his desk. "I actually have, you know, work to do."
"Guess where we are going tomorrow?"
"Hawaii?"
"Sure, if Hawaii looks an awful lot like... Wisconsin."
"Wisconsin?" "Yep, you want to know why?"
"Ummm...Leo needs more cheese?"
"Ha, that's amusing," he does this annoying fake laughter thing he does sometimes when he's feeling superior. Okay, so he does the fake laughter thing a lot, "it seems Leo thinks you should see your parents."
"What? I don't understand."
"Yeah, me neither", he sighs, "there's a house seat up for re-election in November that we're interested in. Richard Falk -- he's running in the fifth against a Republican candidate who we really don't want to see win the seat. I have to go up there and meet with Falk, get a handle on his situation, start to set stuff up for next Fall." He finishes with an irritated glance in my direction.
"Okay? So, why isn't Falk just coming here?"
"That's an excellent question. The 5th district is near," he looks down at a post-it note on top of the folder in his hand, "...Washingkosher."
"Waukesha? Hey, that's where I'm from."
"Exactly. So Leo and the President thought that it would be a nice idea for us to go there, that way, you could get home for a day or so and I could be tortured for something."
"What?"
"What?"
"What are you being tortured for?"
"Oh, nothing, as I understand it, that's just a convenient by-product of this asinine trip; it's a pre-emptive thing."
"Hey, that's not so bad. That means the next time you do something, you're off the hook."
"Somehow, I doubt it's going to work that way. So, call Falk's people, set something up, and make the travel arrangements. We leave tomorrow, I want to be back Wednesday. We zip in, I meet with this guy, you do your family thing, we zip out, we're back here the next day. I mean it, no tours of dairy farms, no family reunions, no apple picking with Uncle Huck, no.."
"Apple picking with Uncle Huck?"
"I don't know, whatever the hell you people do in Wisconsin."
I turn to leave, deciding to leave the coffee on his desk -- he'll forget and absentmindedly take a sip sometime today.
***
Wisconsin is gray and cold; it's spring everywhere else in the country, but it actually looks like it's going to start snowing any minute. Wonderful.
I steal a glance at my traveling companion. She's fiddling with the radio station, finally settling on some alternative type hippy music. I'm actually disappointed the music doesn't sound like sirens much anymore.
Okay, not really.
"Shouldn't you be watching the road?"
"I am. It's fine. I drive fine, don't even start."
"I'm just saying.."
"What are you just saying, Josh?"
She takes her eyes off the road and glares at me. She's been glaring at me ever since we got here. I haven't even done anything.
"What's up?"
"The sky," she snorts back.
"Donna, you've been in a mood ever since we got here and I can't remember even doing anything to piss you off. On the plane I gave you my peanuts, I let you fall asleep on my shoulder, I even got the key card to work on my room at the hotel; what did I do? What's going on?"
I hear her sigh and her voice comes out much softer.
"You didn't do anything. It has nothing to do with you."
"What has nothing to do with me?"
"My crappy mood."
"Okay. Do you want to tell me what your crappy mood as to do with?"
"No."
"Is it killer's remorse?"
"What?"
I grin, "Well, you're back at the scene of the crime, are you feeling a little guilty, Donna?"
I fix her with a smirk. She gives me a blank look until I start making bird noises. At least I try to, but honestly, I don't know what a parakeet sounds like. I hope I'm not making chicken sounds. She looks confused for a second, then smiles. She starts laughing and I think it's the nicest sound I have heard all morning.
"Tim didn't sound like that. He was a small bird, not a ... I don't know what you're doing over there -- a psycho rooster impersonation?"
"Hey, give me a break."
"I could give you a beak instead?"
"That, like the blacksmith joke, is not really funny." I tease.
Damn, she's got a weird look on her face now. One that I have come to associate with, 'the thing.'
That's what I've been calling it. The thing three weeks ago when Donna got drunk and came over to my place. It's kind of like a blush, kind of like a wistful stare, kind of like she's going to throw up; it's a variation on the 'panty stare'.
The other day I was yelling at her to bring me something and she comes traipsing into my office with the folder muttering "keep you pants on". She realized what she said and its literal implications about the same time I did. We both just stared at each other. Then she stared at my pants (I'm assuming to make sure, you know, they were indeed still on). Then the look; it was just a little bit awkward.
Looking back over at her as she drives with her face now clenched tight, I think that even though I just got her to laugh, maybe I shouldn't have brought up the bird thing.
I roll my eyes, oh yeah, I'm a riot over here.
It would be so nice to not have the kind of luck that I do. The kind of luck where a dead parakeet is a euphemism that my assistant and I now share for my dick.
I sigh. Who am I kidding, I should be glad it's a parakeet and say, not a warthog or a toaster oven or something.
Shaking 'a look' from my own face I try to get back to the original subject at hand: why normally happy Donna is suddenly doing a very good impersonation of the Director of White House Communications.
"So, if it's not me and it's not the unfortunate demise of the Moss family pet, what is it?"
"I don't know. I just feel odd." She stops, I try to decide if I should prod her for more details or not, she rescues me from my dilemma by continuing.
"It's happened the last few times I've been back. I mean..." She pauses again and turns the radio off; it's like she's trying to figure out how much of herself to reveal to me. The idea that she feels the need to guard what she says around me makes me a bit sad.
"I remember how I use to be and how I am now, as an adult. Sometimes they feel like two completely different people and when I come back here, it all gets confused and I don't know how to act. Does that make any sense?"
"Yeah, it does actually."
"I also feel weird that I'm here with you."
Well, that's interesting.
"We were here during the campaign. Did you feel weird then?"
"Not really, everyone was here then. We were so busy, there was no time to really think about much other than getting the President elected. Plus, that was then."
"So what do you think about now?"
"I'm thinking about how it's only 11:00 in the morning and your tie is already crooked and your hair is doing that thing. Josh, it usually doesn't do that thing until at least 2:00 in the afternoon."
"Time zones confuse my hair. What are you thinking about Wisconsin now, Donna?"
She sighs and continues, "It's nothing. It just feels... I mean I'm driving around here, on an order to visit my parents from the President of the United States and the White House Chief of Staff. That's weird, isn't it?."
"Well, there is that Falk thing too, so it's not really all about you."
"Yeah, okay, but it's mostly about me," she says with a smile.
I have to agree, I think it's mostly about her too.
***
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