Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

September, 2006

Josh stops beside her row on the bus, hand braced on the seat in front of her. "Did you get a chance to look at the talking points for the..."

Donna looks up at him as he trails off. At least he's talking to me now, she muses, marking her place in her book with a thumb. "Mm?"

"Oh." He's looking at the book in her lap. "I thought you were working. Sorry."

His sheepishness amuses her - there's no way he would've minded interrupting her leisure time back when she was his assistant. "I wasn't, but I can be. What's up?"

"It's really fine. You're reading, it's late..."

This is true - it's nearly two in the morning. It's pitch black outside her window, with only the neon aisle strips - and her clip on book light - illuminating them. Despite a late finish to their last event of the evening, they'd decided to push on to their next stop to avoid an unbearably early morning. They've still got an hour or so to go before they reach their destination, and most everyone else is asleep.

Of course, even on the most tireless campaigns she's worked on, there's always been one man who really never sleeps.

She takes in his demeanor - he's tired, clearly, and frazzled. His hair is a disaster, but then, it's been that way since nine that morning. His tie is still hanging on, though loosened, and his wrinkled shirt is rolled up to his elbows in that way she's always liked. His eyes are bleary - she estimates his last bout of sleep was maybe 36 hours ago.

"Would you like to sit down?" She inclines her head to the empty aisle seat beside her, feeling generous.

He looks at her almost suspiciously - which is fair, maybe. He must decide to trust their shaky truce, because he sinks down next to her. "Thanks."

"Sure. So I have read the talking points for the textiles breakfast, if you wanted to..."

He's not really listening to her. He's studying the cover of her book. "What are you reading?"

She pulls it closer to her, suddenly self conscious. "Oh, it's nothing. I've had it forever, I pulled some stuff out of my storage unit when I was in the district last week."

"'Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems'," he reads, and something in his expression changes. "Poetry again, huh?"

She rolls her eyes. "Don't say 'poetry again' like that."

"I wasn't saying it any kind of way."

There's something going unsaid here, as there always is. If he's trying to ask whether she's reading poetry again because of their recent conversation, the answer is yes, she is. But maybe he's not asking.

She pushes on determinedly. "I think it's good for productivity, you know, to sometimes take a break from briefing memos and press releases. To... refresh. I'm sure there are studies."

"I wasn't saying anything, Donna," he repeats. "It's almost two, I'm not... I'm not mad at you for not working. C'mon."

"Oh, don't act so innocent. You've always treated midnight like our five o'clock."

"Be that as it may," he grants, "if anything, I'm just surprised that if you're not working, you're not at least taking the opportunity to sleep. Most people are."

She smiles wryly. "I thought I'd told you about the importance of making time for oneself, Joshua."

"At two in the morning? That's when you're making it?"

"Some might say options are limited in my line of work."

"Mm," he says distractedly, shifting restlessly in his seat.

"I couldn't help but notice that you're not sleeping either."

"I'm working," he defends, pulling out his blackberry to emphasize his point.

"Right. Of course."

"Don't you have a book to read?" He says pointedly.

"We can go through the talking points, if you want. What did you want to tell me?"

He runs a hand over his face, and his exhaustion - not just physical, it's more than that - is so obvious that it's difficult to witness. "I don't even remember," he confesses softly, and it breaks her heart.

After a moment, she opens her book again, kind enough not to look at him. "That's okay. It'll come back to you."

They fall into an uneasy silence - her returning to her reading, and him to his emails. It's difficult to focus at first, his warmth beside her strange and familiar in all the worst ways, but eventually the discomfort starts to fade into the background. This is, after all, nothing novel - their companionship, their sleepless alliance - though it's never been quite so loaded.

"What are you smiling about?" He asks, breaking a long stretch of quietude.

"What?" She pulls herself away from the poem she'd been reading. She hadn't even noticed herself smiling down at the page. "Oh. Well..."

He peers over her shoulder. "The Illiterate."

"Yes," she confirms, watching his expression curiously.

The Illiterate is actually the reason she'd gone searching for this book to begin with - though she'd been unable to remember the title until now. She'd bought Meredith's book sometime during Josh's recovery - it was highly awarded and popular at the time, and she hoped to read it with him whenever they made it to the contemporary period.

They never did, of course. He'd gone back to work shortly after they'd reached Eliot, and that was that.

She read the book on her own the following spring, when she could find the time, and the poem had stuck out to her. It reminded her of him, somehow, though reading it again now - more than five years later - she has trouble pinpointing why.

Maybe all poems are doomed to remind her of him.

"Kind of ironic," he says. He hasn't moved back to his original position - he's still inclined toward her.

"How's that?"

"It's, you know." He shrugs. "It's a poem called The Illiterate. It's words, is what I'm saying. Written words."

She smiles slightly. "Astute. We're sure that you're not illiterate?"

"Ha, ha," he mutters dryly. "What's it about?"

"You want to read it?" She offers him the book.

"Ah..." he says hesitantly, "Well, I..."

She notices that he's put his phone away again, and realizes suddenly why he's been so quiet. "Oh. You're motion sick."

He avoids her eye, casting his gaze out the window to the deserted highway. "Yeah, uh, kind of."

It was nearly eight years ago now that she'd discovered this tendency of his. He was able to hide it well - which was impressive given that they were always in some bus, plane, or rental car during the first Bartlet campaign - but she'd noticed one day the way he was gritting his teeth trying to make it through a press release.

"You have trouble reading while we're on the road, don't you?"

He'd looked over at her, surprised as always by her unfailing intuition. "It's nothing. I just get a little headache, but hey, my head's been hurting for six months now, so..." he tried to play it off with a joke, but he was pale.

She ignored the diversion tactics. "My sister gets like that. Here, take a break, look out the window. Pick something in the distance - far in the distance - and stare at it until we're close. Then switch to something else."

He was so flustered by her surety that he didn't bother protesting. She watched his eyes as he tracked a distant road sign, then another.

"Better?"

"Yeah, actually. Are you a witch or something?"

"Yes. And you'd do well to remember it."

She doesn't bother reminding him of this trick now. It's dark out, so there's not much for him to look at - plus, she's not sure they're quite at the level where she can start nagging him about his personal wellness again. She's also not sure she wants to.

Considering, she purses her lips. "Well... I could read it to you."

"You'd do that?"

She can't be certain, but she thinks it's the same thing he'd said to her the first time she offered to read to him, all those years ago. Whitman, she's pretty sure - she can see the scene in her mind, his beige bed spread and the navy sweatshirt he wore. You'd do that? He'd looked taken aback, just as he does now.

You'd do that for me? Of course she would. She'd do anything for him, when would he understand that?

"Sure," she tries to sound casual, nonchalant. Two words that have never seemed so out of reach.

He nods tightly. "Okay, yeah. Okay."

She drops her voice even further, unsure just how many of their coworkers are actually asleep. In barely more than a whisper, she reads the first stanza.

"Touching your goodness, I am like a man

Who turns a letter over in his hand

And you might think this was because the hand

Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man

Has never had a letter from anyone;

And now he is both afraid of what it means

And ashamed because he has no other means

To find out what it says than to ask someone."

She pauses for a moment, looking over at Josh. He's trying valiantly to stay awake, but his eyes are nearly shut.

"Hey," she says gently, "It's okay." She lifts one hand from the book and softly, barely touches the side of his face, pulling him toward her.

He doesn't resist her, his head falling heavily onto her shoulder. He shifts a little, getting comfortable. "I'm really fine," he murmurs without opening his eyes. "Just a headache."

"Maybe it has something to do with lack of sleep," she says. Maybe she'll never be able to stop looking after him, in her own pointed way.

"Mm," he says noncommittally. His hair is tickling her ear. "You can... you know. Keep reading."

A grin spreads across her face. "You're kind of the real illiterate, you know. Since I have to read to you."

"Hmph," he breathes with a hint of irritation, though it's certainly undercut by his current position.

"Okay. I'll keep reading," she assures him.

"His uncle could have left the farm to him,

Or his parents died before he sent them word,

Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.

Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.

What would you call his feeling for the words

That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?"

He's dead asleep. It doesn't even matter to her that he hasn't heard all of the poem. She continues to read in silence, her head tucked comfortably on top of his.

Not even fifteen minutes later, Donna sees Congressman Santos making his way down the aisle - his large form pausing intermittently as he squints into each darkened row. She wonders briefly if she should wake Josh - if their current position might embarrass him - but something stops her. He just looked so tired.

Matt reaches their row, and stares in wonderment at the sight before him - as though the dark might be playing tricks on his eyes.

"Congressman," she greets in a whisper, hoping he can't see her blush.

"Donna," he gives her a nod, his tone puzzled.

"Do you need him?" She asks reluctantly.

Matt doesn't answer. "I've never seen him... I mean, I didn't even know he could sleep."

She chuckles, and the movement jostles Josh slightly - though he just makes a soft humming sound and turns even further into her neck. She's embarrassed for him, because she knows he would be, and she wants badly to protect him from it. "Well, he certainly likes to think he's evolved to live without it, but... it catches up to him sometimes. Biology, and all."

"The one thing he can't bend to his will?" Matt asks, amused.

"Right. And believe me, he's tried."

"Right," Matt echoes, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

There's something about the way he's looking at them that makes Donna want to squirm - something searching in his eyes, like he's figuring the two of them out. She hates when people do that.

"Do you need him?" Donna repeats, trying to break the spell.

"Oh, well I was going to run a couple things by him..." He hesitates. "But, you know what? It can wait."

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"No, really, it's okay." He waves a hand decisively, already starting to retreat. "Let him sleep. Sorry to have bothered you."

She watches him go, and breathes a long sigh of relief. For all of the resentment toward Josh she's carried this past year, she finds that she still rather likes this - being the one place he can rest.

"I've got something for you."

A book appears over top of the paper Donna's reading with breakfast. She looks up, finding the book is connected to a hand - a hand which belongs to one Josh Lyman. He's holding it out without quite looking at her, pale and tense under the hotel dining room's fluorescent lights.

She drops her spoon into her oatmeal to take the book from him. "For me?"

"Since you're, you know, getting back into poetry. I had it with me, and I thought..." He's clearly apprehensive, though he's working hard not to seem it.

She turns the book over in her hands, inspecting it. Selected Poems, Yehuda Amichai. Translated by Assia Gutmann. Her brain is still slowly coming to life - it's not yet six o'clock - so she could be mistaken, but the names sound familiar. "Where did you get this?"

"Toby gave it to me, believe it or not," he assumes the seat across from her, but balances precariously on the edge, "when I came back to work, after the... Midterms."

The midterms, she intuits, means the shooting. "Oh."

"Yeah, something about continuing my literary education. The guy - Amichai - he's this famous Israeli poet, one of the first to popularize writing in modern-day Hebrew. But Toby didn't trust my knowledge of Hebrew, of course..."

"Hence the translations."

"Yes."

"And you read it... Then? After the midterms?" She asks the question as neutrally as she can, but there's an accusation lurking there. He read poetry on his own? More importantly, he hadn't shared it with her?

"No," he confesses, "I shoved it in a drawer at the time."

"Right," she says, trying not to sound relieved.

"I found it when I was cleaning out my office, and..." he shrugs. "I don't know, I decided to finally read it. It's good, I think. Not that I can really tell with this stuff. I'll wait and see what you think."

That makes her smile - that he still gives her opinion such weight. "You're allowed to have your own literary opinions, Josh. If you think it's good, then it's good. That's how art works. Beauty in the eye of the beholder, and all that."

"I don't think that's really true." He sends her a crooked grin. "I mean, there's a reason they don't consult me on what to hang in the Met, right?"

"Well, there's plenty of reasons they don't consult you on that," she says distractedly, her focus having returned to the book. She runs her fingers over the cover, trying to remember something. "Assia Gutmann... Oh, I know. That was her maiden name."

Josh furrows his brow. "Whose maiden name?"

"Assia Gutmann. She's also Assia Wevill."

This clearly holds no meaning for him. "Okay...?"

"Assia Wevill? Of the famed Ted Hughes - Sylvia Path - Assia Wevill love triangle?"

Josh merely shrugs. "I've, uh, heard of Plath."

Donna rolls her eyes, though secretly she loves teaching him about things. He'd taught her so much over the years, and it's rewarding when she's able to showcase her own knowledge - especially since she lacks his formal education. "Right, well, Sylvia Plath was married to Ted Hughes, another famous poet at the time. And Hughes rented their apartment in London out to the Wevills - Assia and her husband. They all became friends, I think, but Ted and Assia fell in love - or lust, it's hard to say. He left Plath for her, only a year before Plath committed suicide."

Josh processes this deluge of information. "That's... wow."

"That's not all. A few years later, Wevill also killed herself. Supposedly she was haunted by Plath's memory, by the guilt. She killed herself and her young daughter, too, they died together."

It occurs to her that he had simply come over here to give her a book - to offer a gesture of goodwill - and now she's talking about murder-suicide over oatmeal. He doesn't appear too thrown by the sharp veer in the conversation - he has, after all, had years to get used to her digressions and factoids.

"Two wives who committed suicide back to back?" He remarks as he swipes a grape from her fruit bowl. "Huh. Gotta say, that doesn't look great for old Ted."

"He never married Wevill. But yes, that's the question, isn't it?"

"I didn't ask a question."

"Well then, I'm asking." She pulls her bowl back as he reaches for another grape. "Do you think that Ted Hughes was attracted to mad women to begin with, or that he drove them mad?"

He hesitates, intimidated by her unwavering eye contact. "Why do I feel like there's a right answer here?"

"There's no right answer. There's just your answer."

He tilts his head to one side. "He drove them mad, I guess. He must've, right?"

"I don't know, must he?"

"You're not going to psych me out, Moss. That's my final answer - it was Ted's fault."

"Wrong!" She cries cheerfully.

"I thought you said-"

"It was a trick question," she tells him with clear mirth. "Hughes wasn't attracted to mad women, and he didn't drive them anywhere."

"Okay..." He says slowly, nonplussed.

"It was a trick question, because neither woman was mad."

He stares at her across the table - her droll, triumphant expression - and she's suddenly a bit self-conscious. She looks away, and he clears his throat. "So she - Wevill, Gutmann - she translated Amichai?"

"Yes," Donna tells him, glad to be back on an easier subject. "I remember now. She was actually a rather gifted translator in her own right, even wrote a few original poems. But hardly anyone remembers her outside of the Hughes - Plath controversy. It's a shame."

"Right."

She takes another bite of her oatmeal - now gone cold - and chews slowly. Finally, she decides to ask the question that's been on her mind since he'd sat down. "You brought the book with you?"

His arms are folded across his chest now - he's leaning back in his chair with practiced boredom. "Huh?"

"The book. You brought it on the campaign trail."

"Oh." He glances off to the side, where a handful of other staffers are moving through the buffet line. "Well, uh, yeah. I was in the middle of reading it, I guess I just threw it in my backpack."

"Okay," she allows, though it doesn't sound like him. Then, maybe she doesn't fully know what's like him anymore. "Okay, well, thanks. I'll read it."

He's very deliberately not looking at her. He scratches the side of his head, and says his next words so off-handedly she almost doesn't catch them - "There's one in there that, uh, reminded me of you."

She swallows, her mouth sticky from the oatmeal. "What?"

He stands up and pushes in his chair. "Kind of. I mean, I don't know. It wasn't... Yeah."

She wonders if he knows that he's not actually saying anything. She understands him, anyway, of course. "Oh. Which-"

"I'll catch up with you later," he says brusquely, starting toward the cluster of staffers. "Yeah, I'll... Anyway. I hope you like it."

She watches him go, watches his frenetic movements as he accosts Otto about something. She gingerly opens the book, running her hand over the first page. She's unable to keep the thought from crossing her mind, even though she knows it's unlikely - Has he been carting this book across the country for months because it reminds him of me?

It's not clear where exactly the rumor gets started that Billy Joel is going to perform at the fundraiser - it might've even come from the campaign itself, in an attempt to encourage attendance. Regardless, staff and potential donors alike are buzzing with excitement throughout the event, wondering when the surprise appearance will take place.

The anticipation ends up being for naught. Billy Joel, as it turns out, is on the opposite coast, and had no idea that he was rumored to perform at Congressman Santos's fundraiser that night.

By the time they make it back to the hotel, there's still a lingering sense of disappointment in the air, though overall the event was a success. Most of the staff congregates at the hotel bar, some working, but most taking the opportunity to blow off steam and extend the festive atmosphere a little longer. Many had been given their first opportunity in months to dress up - it had been a black tie affair, drawing out the big money - and they were reluctant to take off their finery after only a few hours' wear.

Donna finds herself sharing a drink with Lou, who's still complaining about the Billy Joel fiasco ("I hope this won't come back to us, and make it seem like we were making false promises..."), when the idea occurs to her. She downs her drink and excuses herself, hiking up her dark green ballgown so she can rush off to find her computer.

A few minutes later, she's back in the bar, tracking down Josh. She spies him huddled with the Congressman and a few others, and it's clear from their expressions that they're not taking the night off.

"Hey," she greets, putting a hand on his elbow.

He raises his eyebrows, following her a few steps away. "What's up?"

He's still in his tux, but the bow tie's undone. He hadn't asked her to tie it, and she hadn't offered - she noticed him fidgeting with it, irritated, all night. She'd also noticed the way his eyes swept over her when she first emerged from the elevator in her ballgown, and the thrill from the moment has stayed with her since.

She presses a few sheets of paper, still warm from the printer, into his hand. "I've got an idea."

He frowns, eyes scanning the page in obvious confusion. "Why are you giving me this?"

She gestures grandly to the piano a few yards away, in the lounge area between the bar and lobby. "I thought it might be nice."

Realization dawns on him as he looks between the piano and the sheet music she's given him. "Are you serious?"

"C'mon. I know you were disappointed he didn't show, you've always been a fan."

"Donna-"

"It'll be good for staff morale! Think of the morale, Josh." She gives him her best convincing smile, and sees his resolve slowly crumbling. "Come on. Sing us a song, you're the piano man."

He points at her decisively, and she knows she's won. "I'm not singing."

"Just play it. All I'm asking."

While he sets up at the piano, she grabs the start of an audience and pulls them with her to crowd around him. Curious, others start to follow.

"I hope you're happy, Donnatella," Josh calls out to her, feigning irritation, as he plays the opening phrase. Many of the staffers recognize it immediately, and a surprised cheer rises out of the bar.

She beams. "Thrilled."

For a moment, Donna's afraid she'll be the only one singing, but another voice loudly belts out the first lyric with her.

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, regular crowd shuffles in..."

Startled, she looks over to see Congressman Santos singing with gusto, one hand on his chest. Beside him, Helen rolls her eyes good-naturedly, while his staff whoops at his effort.

By the chorus, nearly everyone in the bar has joined in, shouting it out with reckless abandon. "Sing us a song, you're the piano man..." some are even waving their cell phones overhead like a concert, "Sing us a song tonight..." They're all delirious - months of sleep deprivation and single-minded obsession will do that to a person - and it's possible this is the most fun anyone's had since the convention.

Meanwhile, Donna has come to stand behind Josh, her hands resting gently on his shoulders as he plays. She's hardly able to contain her joy, her pride, as she watches the faces around her reflecting the way she'd always felt about Josh - the way most people felt about him, when he let them: adoring.

Later, when the song is over, and the crowd has dispersed in high spirits, he doesn't thank her for her suggestion. But he does ask her, jokingly, to share a drink with him, "to loneliness."

She replies, without hesitation, "Better than drinking alone," and he grins.

As they clink their glasses together, she tells him, "You did a terrible job with your tie, tonight, by the way."

By which she means, I still love it when you can't dress yourself without me. I still love peppermint ice cream, even if it gets stuck in my teeth.

"You're not actually using the joke, are you?" Josh follows her doggedly down the hall as she marches toward the front door, the press waiting for her on the other side.

"I actually am," she tells him breezily, continuing unfazed.

"You're not! It's not going to play well with moderates, and with how we're polling in the Midwest right now, especially among-"

"Lou likes the joke," she reminds him, glancing down at the prepared statement in her hand.

Lou, who's also accompanying them on their halting journey down the hallway, confirms this. "I like the joke. The Congressman likes the joke, everyone likes the joke."

Josh switches to walking backward in front of her, flinging his arms outward incredulously. "I like the joke fine, that's not the problem. The problem is-"

"The problem is that you don't get my humor. Never have, it's too high brow," Donna says flatly, enjoying getting him riled up.

"Donna!"

"Josh?"

"Tell me you're not going to use the joke."

"If they ask me the question, then yes, I might use the joke."

"You're insane!" He grabs her wrist to slow her down.

She stops walking and whirls around to face him. "Oh, I'm insane?"

"Um." He drops her wrist, realizing his mistake. "Of course I didn't mean that you're-"

"Well, if I'm insane," she gives up the ruse and offers him a slight smile, "then you drove me insane."

Josh brightens at this. "Aha! Nice try, but I can't drive you anywhere!"

Lou is swiveling her head between them as though she's watching a particularly vigorous tennis match. Donna wonders how surprised she'd be to learn that somehow, they're actually talking about Sylvia Plath now. Their confusing shorthand is back - perhaps even worse than before.

Donna resumes her progress toward the door, shaking her head in amusement. "Very good, Josh. You're a quick learner."

Josh lets her go.

Before she can stop herself - before she can fully decide whether this is a good idea or not - Donna is pounding on Josh's hotel room door at three in the morning. Not just knocking, but truly banging on it, the way he'd done to her door countless times over the years - always scaring her half to death.

The door swings open mid-banging, and she hastily retracts her hand so as not to hit him.

"Donna?" He rubs an eye blearily, though she notices he's not yet undressed. If she had to guess, she'd say he passed out in his clothes not long ago, staring at an electoral map and advertising budgets. "What the hell are you..."

"I was reading the Amichai," she tells him by way of a greeting. She, on the other hand, is completely dressed for bed - she hadn't expected to get up again tonight. She's got on plaid boxers and the grey Indiana State University sweatshirt he'd bought her years ago, on a different campaign, after he noticed her shivering in wet clothes.

"You were..." Despite his fatigue, she notices the way his eyes climb her legs. He pauses at the book in her hand, comprehension dawning. "Oh."

"Was it this one?" She asks, shoving the book toward him, opened to a specific page.

His eyes flicker between hers and the book, and she can see his mounting hesitation. "I don't really..."

"A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention. Is that the one that reminded you of me?" She demands.

He shifts awkwardly in the doorway, unable to figure out a place for his hands. One in his pocket, the other balled at his side. "I really don't remember what it was called."

She doesn't believe him, not for a second. "This wasn't the one you were talking about?"

There's heat rising in his face. He jams his second hand in his pocket, too, and kicks idly at the carpet. "Why do I feel like there's a right answer here?"

"There's no right answer," she tells him, serious this time. "There's just your answer."

He looks at her, wide and afraid, and she's sure he's going to say it. To meet her halfway. "I... don't remember."

She grits her teeth, furious. "Okay. I'll read it to you then."

"Donna, you don't have to..."

"They amputated Your thighs off my hips-"

"Donna," he admonishes, turning away from her and running a hand through his hair.

She ignores him. "As far as I'm concerned, They are all surgeons. All of them. They dismantle us, Each from the other. As far as I'm concerned, They are all engineers. All of them. A pity. We were such a good And loving invention-"

"It was that one!" He cuts her off loudly, his eyes squeezed shut. "It was that one, okay, are you happy? And I know that it's weird, and I'm not saying it's really anything like us, it's just that-"

She surges forward and kisses him soundly. The book hangs limply at her side.

"That was the right answer," she tells him when they finally break apart. He's holding her face reverently. "That was the right answer, Josh."

October, 2006

Donna jogs down the hall of the convention center to catch up to Josh and the Santoses. She falls into stride beside Josh, a couple steps behind the Congressman and his wife, and immediately starts running her hands along the arm of his suit coat.

"Hey - what are you-"

"Bathroom was out of paper towels," she informs him with a grin, continuing to grasp at his sleeve.

"Oh, fuck off," he says, swatting at her hands, and she swats right back.

Helen glances over her shoulder at the commotion, and they quickly sober themselves.

Once in the lobby, Helen and Matt say their goodbyes - Josh is going with the Congressman to another rally, while Donna will be accompanying Mrs. Santos to an interview taping. While they're talking, discussing something to do with their kids, Donna utilizes the opportunity to tap Josh on the shoulder.

"Spin," she directs him, and he doesn't need to ask what she means. He turns so she can unzip his backpack, and she procures a water bottle after a few seconds of rifling. "Thanks, water boy."

"Water boy?" He repeats mildly, eyes flicking up from his blackberry.

"Water boy," she confirms, raising the bottle to her lips. "Or would you prefer 'pack mule'?"

"Hm." His gaze returns to his phone. "Choice is entirely yours, princess."

Donna nearly chokes on her water. She looks over at the Santoses, but they're not paying attention. Matt kisses Helen goodbye, and Donna notices, not for the first time, their height difference. The Congressman is a tall man, and has to bend over to kiss his wife. Donna tries not to smile, thinking about how she and Josh meet perfectly in the middle.

She wonders when they'll be able to kiss goodbye like that - not caring who's watching.

They follow the Santoses out of the convention center, all four of them blinking in the early October sun. She notices Josh patting his pockets, and tells him "They're on your head," which is almost as good as a kiss.

In the black SUV with Helen, on their way to the interview, Donna refocuses on her job. "So they're going to ask you about the education plan, and I think that'll be a good moment to bring in your PTA experience, so that we can-"

"Right, yes, of course," Helen says brusquely, "Now tell me. How long have you two been a thing?"

Donna tries very hard to look confused. "Ma'am?"

"You and Josh." She's practically smirking. "I'm not blind, you know."

Helen is looking at Donna in much the same way that her husband had, that night on the bus. Like they're an enigma she'll be able to decipher if she tries hard enough.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Donna says lightly, though she's definitely blushing by now.

"Of course you don't," Helen allows, and lets it drop.

Maybe the answer has never been quite as complicated as Donna thinks. How long have you two been a thing? - Oh, not long. Just the better part of a decade.

Dancing enthusiastically with Bram, carefully cradling her third drink, it occurs to Donna that sometime soon, she should probably do something to let him know that she's not planning to sleep with him tonight.

The debate - while not a clear landslide victory - had gone well enough for the Congressman that the staff felt comfortable celebrating it. Really, any excuse to celebrate at this point in the campaign was welcome. Foregoing the hotel bar, they'd brought the bar upstairs with them into their business suite - drinking terrible mixed drinks out of styrofoam cups and rigging a speaker to play everything from Ranchera to Motown.

Donna's danced with nearly everyone by now - everyone except Josh. He'd left to take a phone call (she suspects it's Toby) over an hour ago, and hasn't reappeared. She keeps intending to go find him, but she's side tracked each time - by someone else pulling her into a clumsy shuffle, or congratulating her on one of her lines that the Congressman had used to great applause.

She's danced with nearly everyone, but the problem is that she's now dancing with Bram for the third time. Some time in their second dance, he'd grown more confident - his hands straying from the safety of her hands, her back, to the slightly more suggestive waist and hips.

She could be wrong, but she's pretty sure he's looking at her with hints of desire. Nothing earth-shattering, just the simple attraction of proximity, she surmises - Hey, I'm here, you're here. I'm attractive, you're attractive. Why not?

It's nothing like the way Josh looks at her - has maybe always looked at her, if she thinks about it. When she was dressed up for dates with men that weren't him, when she was shivering in a ball gown outside her apartment - hell, on any given Wednesday, as she handed him a file in the bullpen.

It has become more obvious, lately, the way he looks at her. Like he would raze cities to the ground just to clear a path to her bed.

Or maybe she's just been reading too much poetry.

Bram is a nice enough guy, but at some point soon, she's going to have to tell him that she won't be spending the night with him - because she's almost definitely going to spend it with his boss. Or perhaps his boss's boss - it's been a few months now, but she's still not entirely clear on the food chain.

Since the night she beat down his door and read him the Amichai, she and Josh haven't spent a night apart - except for the nights they're in different cities, of course. Even then, they sometimes brave unreasonably long cab rides to close the distance. It's only been three weeks (eons in campaign time, admittedly) and they're still in the delirious honeymoon phase. They're never too tired, it's never too late - they always find their way to each other by the end of the night.

She's pretty sure they've done well at keeping things under wraps, but it's hard to say. She's always had a blind spot for that kind of thing. She never noticed the raised eyebrows as she and Josh passed a beer back and forth, until Carol told her once that people found it strange ("Not me, of course, but you know...").

Maybe their fellow campaign staffers have noticed how his hand always finds the small of her back when they're walking. Maybe they've picked up on the way he now steps out of his room when staffers bring him late night updates, rather than let them in as he used to. Maybe they read into the fact that she once answered his cell at five in the morning, voice groggy.

It's kind of funny, when she thinks about it - the fact that, if anything, people probably think they're just another campaign fling.

She feels him watching her before she sees him. Bram spins her out again, laughing, and she confirms her suspicion - he's there, hands in his pockets, staring at her. The burning cities look is out in full force.

Later that night, she'll tease him about this look.

"I do not look at you like that," he'll maintain as he climbs over top of her.

"Do too!" She'll grin, "Not unlike how I'd imagine Menelaus regarded Helen of Troy before-"

"Oh, this look is mythological now?"

"It is. You look at me the way Hades looked at-"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do. Do too, do too, do too..." she'll gasp out as he proves her right.

But right now, she just smiles at him idly, enjoying the sudden heat of his gaze. Bram must notice him there, too, because he drops her hand.

"Do you, um, need her?" He asks hesitantly.

"Need her?" Josh smirks indulgently. "Yes. I do need her, actually, Bram."

Donna looks at him coyly as he approaches her, Bram beating a hasty retreat. "And what exactly do you need me for, hm?"

With one hand, he pulls her toward him by her waist - with the other, he grabs the drink from her hand and takes a sip. "What is this?"

"Vodka and ginger ale, I'm pretty sure."

"Gross," he says flatly, taking another sip.

"Josh," she says sternly, "what did you need me for?"

He doesn't answer, just keeps pulling her in closer - dangerously close, they're practically flush against one another. Reflexively, she winds one arm around his neck, either too tipsy or too enamored to care about the stares. There's been a stark change of mood - from Born to Run to Beast of Burden - and hardly anyone is dancing anymore.

"Was it to congratulate me on my environmentalism line? Some people have said it was the highlight of-"

He kisses her, right there, like it's the most natural thing in the world. He kisses her as passionately as he always does, when they tumble into his room at day's end and hastily shut the door.

It occurs to her, distantly, that this is tacky. She's not nineteen, necking some random guy in a darkened frat basement, she's in a Hilton conference room surrounded by her coworkers.

She's just finding it a little hard to care.

"Do you want to get out of here?" He asks her when he pulls back, eyes searching.

She's sure that she looks like a smitten idiot. She might even have her own burning cities look. "You don't want to stay and celebrate a little?" She teases.

He's already pulling her toward the door. "Oh, I want to celebrate. Just not here."

November, 2006

"Have you noticed," Donna starts, "that increasingly, the poems we're showing each other are love poems?"

Josh, who'd been nearly asleep beside her, opens his eyes. It's probably for the best that she doesn't let him drift off - he's expected downstairs for a briefing on their most recent ad-buy in twenty minutes.

"I thought you said," he yawns, "that all poems are love poems?"

She rolls her eyes, marking her page in Gutmann's Amichai translations - which she's rereading for the third time now. "You know what I mean."

"Hardly ever." He flips onto his stomach, pulling himself closer so he can rest his head in her lap.

"All poems are love poems, yes, I stand by that. But The Illiterate, A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention... Those are what one might call extra love poems."

"You're changing the rules on me, now."

"They're my rules, I'm allowed."

"Fine," he grants. "Extra love poems, whatever. What about them? What are you trying to say?"

Maybe she hadn't really thought this through. "I'm not trying to say anything, I'm just... saying," she concludes lamely.

"Are you trying to say that we're in love?"

"Quit it. You're making fun of me."

"No I'm not," he says idly, but she can't be sure. He kisses her stomach, making her squirm. "I wrote you a sonnet, you know."

She tries to control her breathing, completely unsure where he's going with this. "I recall."

"I wrote you a sonnet. I taught you piano, I gave you a book of poetry even though I'm, you know... Me. Doesn't that say enough?"

"I don't know what you're..."

"But I will say it, if you want. I love you." He props his chin on her hip bone, looking up at her warmly.

She bites her lip, embarrassed to find there are tears welling in her eyes. "Don't say that. Don't say that if you don't mean it."

"Okay. But I do mean it, is the thing."

"I wasn't trying to get you to say that. I wasn't trying to make you think..."

"I know you weren't. I'm just saying it because I love you. There, look, I said it again."

She lets out a watery chuckle. "You're insane."

"You drove me there."

"Maybe I did," she allows, tenderly running a hand through his hair.

"Donna?"

"Mm?"

"No pressure or anything, it's just, generally when a person declares their love..."

Her eyes widen. "Oh! You'd like me to say it back, I'd imagine."

"No, no, not if you're not ready. Just perhaps an acknowledgement - a 'thank you,' even. A receipt of my love, if you will-"

"Josh-"

"-so that I know you received it, undamaged-"

Laughing, she flips the sheets over his head. "I love you too, dearest. I love you most ardently."

After a bit of struggling, he re-emerges, beaming. "Dearest? Really, that's what we're going with?"

"Or maybe I'll go back to water boy."

"That works."

"I can call you whatever I like, my love."

"Yes," he agrees, and she can feel his hand trailing up her thigh, "Yes, you can."

"It's occurred to me," Josh leans over to tell her conspiratorially, mid-flight, "that you've never written me a poem."

Donna looks up from the speech draft she's annotating to find that he's giving her a rather devious grin. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just saying. I've written you a poem."

"Okay. Would you like a cookie?" She asks mildly.

"It's just that, according to you, writing a poem is an act of love. And I wrote you a poem."

"That poem was hardly-"

"And you haven't written me one. So what does that say about-"

"Oh my god, are you serious with this?"

"I just think that, when you tally things up, I wrote you a sonnet. And you wrote me nothing. I said 'I love you' first-"

"By like thirty seconds!"

"So you can see how an outside observer might conclude that, you know, I love you more," he says, smirking at her triumphantly.

She huffs in irritation. "An outside observer, huh?"

"Yes. Actually," he leans out into the aisle, "Ronna! C'mere a second."

She gapes at him. "You're - you're not actually-"

"An objective perspective might-"

"I'm going to kill you, Josh, don't-"

Ronna appears at their row, smiling obliviously. "What's up?"

"Could you get Rex from Northwest polling on the phone for me? Thanks."

As Ronna heads back to her own seat to retrieve her cell, Donna swats at him irritably with the papers in her hand. "You're an asshole."

He's practically cackling. "An asshole who wrote you a sonnet!"

She bites her lip, trying not to smile. "I'll have you know, Joshua, that I did actually write you a few lines of poetry. Many years ago."

"Oh?" He settles back in his seat, looking intrigued. "And why am I just hearing about this now?"

"Because," she says primly, "it's... well, it's embarrassing."

"Awfully convenient, Donna."

"I'm serious!"

"Right. Okay, sure. I'll believe it when I see it."

When she had given her diary to Cliff Calley all those years ago, she wasn't worried about revealing any grave state secrets. There also weren't any grand love confessions to her boss lurking in its pages - she hadn't even fully admitted her preoccupation to herself, much less written it out plainly. Her diary was, in reality, rather quotidian. During the most intense periods of her life - the shooting, the unraveling of the MS scandal - she hadn't had any time to write in it. So, all told, she wasn't terribly worried that Cliff would uncover anything groundbreaking.

Instead, while she was sitting on that park bench in the early autumn chill - waiting for Cliff to make it through the mundane details of her everyday life - she was wondering if he might somehow know that Josh played piano.

Back in DC to wrangle some last minute endorsements, Donna returns to her storage unit to dig through her books for the second time in as many months. When she finally finds the battered old diary - the ribbon bookmark now frayed - she has to flip through a couple times before she locates it: two lines hastily scrawled at the bottom of a page.

Reading them again now, on the other side of six years, they're still mildly embarrassing to her. But damned if she's going to miss an opportunity to prove a point to Josh.

She waits until they're alone to procure the diary from her suitcase, opening it to the bookmarked page.

"What's this?" He asks her, seated on the end of her bed as he unties his tie.

"Read. Right here." She points to the two lines crammed below an entry about her fraught relationship with her mother.

He squints. "Donna, your handwriting..."

"Oh my god, use context clues!" She bursts out irritably, her vulnerability getting the best of her.

He deciphers the words at a snail's pace. "As I watch your hands move across the keys, I don't dare say: I wish the keys were me."

Standing before him, she watches him expectantly. "Well. I suppose I'll take this opportunity to say 'I told you so.'"

He continues to stare at the words. "I don't get it."

She paces a few steps away from him, trying to control her agitation. "It's about you, you idiot!"

"It... is?" He's starting to understand, slowly but surely.

"Yes!"

"October 17th, 2000." He reads the entry's date, comprehension dawning in his eyes. "It's about me... playing the piano?"

"Any day now, Josh, you're going to get there."

He's starting to look unabashedly delighted as he scans the couplet a few more times. "Donna... did you, like, used to have a crush on me or something?"

"That's it! Give it back!" She practically tackles him for it, and he falls back on the bed, managing to keep it out of her reach.

"If I'd known you had a thing for the piano... I mean, God, I would've put a baby grand in the bullpen!"

She finally succeeds in wresting the journal back, smacking him with it a couple times for good measure. "This was supposed to be me winning an argument."

"Really? How's that?"

"I wrote a poem about you! You said that because you wrote me a poem, and I didn't..."

"Ah, right." He pushes the blazer from her shoulders. "Well this hardly counts. This is just a couple measly lines, mine was the whole Shakespearian shebang."

She assists him, switching the diary from hand to hand so she can slip out of her sleeves. "Yours wasn't Shakespearian, if memory serves. It was Petrarchan. And it wasn't even really that, because you got the syllable counts wrong."

"I love it when you talk dirty to me."

Donna sequesters herself onto a bench at the memorial service, eager to take a moment alone. The day has been inexorably long - which she'd expected, in theory, but in reality it's that much worse. She keeps expecting Leo to walk around the corner at any moment, to join the conversation and make some gruff remark about the somber atmosphere.

It doesn't help matters that Josh has disappeared somewhere with Amy Gardner. She'd been lurking all night, alternately harassing or flirting with him. But then, maybe they're one and the same - her brand of political persuasion has always bordered on seduction. Regardless of whether she was with Josh at the time or not, Amy would always flash a triumphant smirk in Donna's direction before closing his office door behind them - as if to say, I probably won't blow him, but I might blow him while I'm in there - so give us a knock, would you?

And it's not like Donna doesn't trust him. She does - how could she not, when he'd looked at her like he had? When he'd told her he loved her?

Of course she trusts him. It doesn't mean the situation doesn't make her skin crawl, though. She's so lost in her own thoughts that she barely notices CJ slipping onto the bench beside her.

"So this is where you've been hiding."

Donna gives her a half-hearted smile. "Caught me. How are you holding up?"

CJ shrugs. "Don't ask me that. I'm happy to see you, how's that for an answer?"

Donna nods understandingly. "Fair enough. Likewise."

"I meant to tell you, you're welcome to stay at my place while you're in town if you'd like. I forgot you were subletting, I would've offered sooner. But things have been a little..." CJ trails off, shaking her head.

"I get it," Donna tells her easily. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm all set. Got in last night, actually."

"Right. You're treating yourself to an extravagant, lavish hotel, I hope? With fleece robes and those little towel swans?"

"Well..." Donna's distracted by Josh's re-entering the foyer, looking beleaguered. He scans the room, and she knows he's looking for her. "Not a hotel, per se."

CJ follows her gaze. Josh's eyes alight on them, and his face relaxes as he starts in their direction.

Donna feels CJ smack her arm. "You're kidding me!"

"What?"

"You're kidding me, Donna, you two? Finally? I mean, I heard rumors out of the campaign, but there's always been rumors..."

Before Donna can respond, Josh has squeezed himself into the space between them, flopping dramatically onto her shoulder. He grabs her hand, threading their fingers together.

"Can we, for the love of God, get out of here?"

It's in that moment that she starts to suspect they might actually work out - that this thing with her and Josh could last. She's hoped, of course, but never dared put too much stock in it until now.

The time they've spent together on the campaign has been unreal. They've been in a world of their own - starched hotel sheets, poetry, a different city every night. A ripple in time and space. And it's been wonderful - beyond wonderful - a perfect fever dream.

But it hasn't been real.

Not like this moment, which is brutally everyday. They've been pitched back into real life head first - into a funeral, and political appointments, and ex girlfriends, and lobbying, and a city that kept them at arm's length from each other for years.

And it makes her think that they might just make it. Because confronted with all of that, he's decided to take her hand.

Maybe she shouldn't let him. Maybe she should care more about when the right time to confirm the rumors is, about whether she's undermining her position - or his. But hell, this is Leo's funeral. And they're both tired.

She leans over and presses a quick kiss to the top of his head. "Not yet, hon. We told the President we'd stick around a while."

CJ makes a gagging noise. "Hon? Am I hallucinating?"

Josh straightens up to grin at her. "Oh, hey CJ."

"Gross. I mean, I'm happy for you, but gross."

It all fades into the background. Josh and CJ launch into bickering beside her, Amy glowers from a doorway. The President-elect is smiling into his plate of finger sandwiches. And they're back - they're really back - in this place where everything happens.

Yes, she thinks, we might just be able to make it work.

"Hey, Donna?" Josh intones quietly, into the stillness of his pitch-dark bedroom. The blackout curtains she'd gotten him a few years ago were certainly a worthwhile investment.

She doesn't need to see him to know that, like her, he's staring blankly at the ceiling. "Mm?"

"You got any poems about grief to read me?" He's trying for droll, but there's too much heaviness in his voice.

"I've got plenty," she tells him, fumbling for his hand. "But none that'll make you feel better."

He sighs. "I thought you might say that."

She doesn't expect to sleep much that night, but she must drift off eventually, because she wakes up a few hours later to the soft sound of piano in the other room. She drags herself out of bed, pulling on a sweatshirt from the dresser on her way, and shuffles into the guest room.

"Did I wake you?" He turns around on the piano bench, and the guilt on his face takes her breath away.

She waves a hand. "No, sweetie, you didn't."

He must truly be lost in his thoughts, as he doesn't even balk at the pet name. "I couldn't sleep."

"I know. It's okay." She sinks onto the bench beside him, glancing at the sheet music. Marche Funebre. "You and this Chopin guy," she teases lightly.

He gives her a thin smile. "A bit on the nose, I'll grant."

She shrugs. "Maybe."

He restarts the piece, which is expectedly morose. "I played it at Joanie's memorial service."

"It's a hard piece for a fourth grader," she says neutrally, rubbing his back with one hand.

"Not really. I only played the first movement."

"Right."

"She always liked Chopin. I guess I kind of felt like I owed it to her."

"That's a lot to shoulder, for a little boy."

He shakes his head, plodding along in the somber march. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"You didn't."

They don't talk for a while. He keeps playing, and once she's able to follow along, she turns the pages for him. After he's finished the piece - imperfectly, but not without feeling - they sit in amicable silence for a few minutes.

"I don't want to be Leo," he tells her suddenly. His eyes are still on the sheet music, his expression difficult for her to read.

"Okay," she affirms tentatively. "You don't have to be."

"I know everyone thinks that... I don't know, that I'm following in his footsteps, or something. But I don't want to."

"I don't think that."

A corner of his mouth turns up. "I love the guy, but... he sacrificed his marriage for the job. He sacrificed everything. I can't... I don't want that to be me. I lived and breathed Bartlet for two terms, and... I don't think I want to do it again."

"I don't want you to do it again, either," she tells him gently, wrapping one arm around his waist.

"I want to be more than my job. I want a life."

She smiles into his shoulder. "I believe it was once said that, 'Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for.'"

Now smiling genuinely, he turns into her and kisses her forehead. "Your ability to quote things offhand never ceases to amaze me."

"Well, it shouldn't. I lifted that one from Dead Poets Society."

He laughs, and it's like a gift. "I love you."

Surprised, she merely holds him tighter. "I love you, too."

"You're the life I want, is what I'm saying. Or that's what I'm trying to say. I don't know, you're the one who's good with words."

"Josh..."

"I didn't always want a life. And maybe I did want to be like Leo, for too long. Maybe I thought he was... a martyr, somehow. But I don't think that anymore."

"You don't?"

"Because I've got you. You're... you're the thing. The thing we stay alive for, or whatever Robin Williams said to those prep school jerks."

She kisses his cheek, unsure how to convey just how much his words mean to her. She settles on, "That's really very cheesy, sweetheart."

"Shut up," he chuckles, and she laughs too.

She's confronted - rather suddenly - by the fact that she's going to marry the man beside her.

Eventually, she says, "Let's go to bed."

"Okay," he agrees, lowering the key cover. He allows her to lead him into the bedroom.

"I can't believe they had an eight year old play Chopin at his sister's funeral," she murmurs as they collapse into the mattress.

"I asked to. They didn't make me, I asked to."

"Of course you did." She wraps herself around him, getting as close as she possibly can. "Of course you did."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you're brave."

"You think I'm brave."

"Yeah, but I know what I'm talking about."

"Maybe."

"Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"You're the life I want, too, for the record. You're the life I've always wanted."

December, 2006

"I think we should get married."

Donna drags her eyes away from her book to where Josh is sprawled in the beach chair beside her, eyes hidden by his sunglasses. "No you don't," she says flatly.

"Yes, I do!" He sits up straighter. "I'm serious."

"I'm in the middle of reading you this bleak poem about lost love-" a gross oversimplification of The Glass Essay, but hey, he's not one to notice, "-and you're thinking about marriage?"

"Yes." He gives her a winning smile.

She's been bravely plowing through The Glass Essay over the course of the past day or so - it's not quite The Song of Myself length, but it's no quick read, either. Compounding this is the fact that vacationing with Josh - though certainly much more relaxing than the campaign trail had been - has come with a slew of distractions and interruptions. Nice ones, of course, but distractions and interruptions nonetheless.

The book she'd found The Glass Essay in bore the misnomer Collected Modern Love Poems. She'd impulsively bought it at the airport, all pretense gone as she stood there lovesick during their layover. As it turned out, there were all manner of love poems within the volume - many of them not quite so optimistic as she was.

In the past few days, she's read him Leave-Taking by Louise Bogan, Audre Lorde's Movement Song, and now, Carson's brutal Glass Essay. None of them have provided an overly rosy picture of lasting love.

She can tell he's kind of humoring her with The Glass Essay - there's far too much brooding and too many Bronte references for him to enjoy it, and the glacial pace has definitely left his attention span behind in the dust. He'd perked up a little when she got to the section with the "nudes," though he lost interest again when she explained that they were nudes of the mind, not the body.

He hadn't asked her to stop reading, though.

"Be serious, Josh."

"I've never been more serious in my life."

She marks her spot in Love Poems and turns toward him, pretending to indulge the idea. "And just what is it about all these pessimistic poems that's making you hear wedding bells?"

He smiles like she's thrown him an easy question. "That you're the one reading them. And I like the sound of your voice."

She snorts. "And that's a reason to marry someone?"

"It's one reason. I've got plenty."

"You're the most impulsive man I've ever met."

"I'm not impulsive."

"You flew across the country, at Christmas, with a half-baked plan to convince a retiring Congressman to run for President. You quit your job with the Democratic frontrunner in '98, with no notice, to work for Jed Bartlet. I'm not saying it doesn't work out for you, hon, but you're objectively an impulsive man."

He's now sitting cross legged on his chair, turned fully to face her. "Alright, fine, but I also had a hell of a lot of impulses to kiss you over the past nine years that I didn't go through with."

She pushes her sunglasses to her forehead, taken aback. "Oh?"

"Maybe I'm impulsive, but I'm not being impulsive right now."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm not." He switches to her chair, pushing her legs aside. "In fact..." He bends over her and grabs her beach bag, rifling through the contents.

"What the hell are you-" her hand flies up to her mouth, because he's just pulled out an engagement ring. Not just any engagement ring - the ring.

It's been a long time since she'd seen the ring. She first found it by accident - he'd sent her to get a change of clothes from his apartment, and there it was, squirreled away in the back of his sock drawer. She knew she shouldn't open the velvet box, knew it was wrong - but she couldn't help herself, prying it open with shaking hands as she kneeled on his carpet.

It was beautiful. And it made her want to throw up, because he'd been dating Amy at the time.

She brought it up as casually as she could - trying not to betray the way her heart was puddled in her shoes.

"You know," she said briskly, passing him a garment bag with a fresh suit, "you really should hide the ring better. Amy could find it accidentally."

He'd looked utterly confused. "What ring?"

She wanted to hit him over the head for dragging this out. "The ring! The engagement ring, in your sock drawer."

Even with that crystal clear description, it still took him a few moments to understand. "Oh, the ring! I forgot that was in there."

"You... forgot?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, it's been in there forever."

"It has?"

"Well, more than a year now." A look of horror took over his face. "Oh my god, you didn't think it was for Amy, did you?"

She was suddenly embarrassed for jumping to conclusions. They had only been together about six months. "Well, what was I supposed to think?"

He shook his head, still looking a tad queasy. "It's a family heirloom. My great-grandmother's ring, on my dad's side. My mom insisted I take it when she was clearing out the house to move to Florida. I tried to reason with her, but..." he shrugged again. "She still has a bizarre amount of faith that I'm going to tie the knot one day."

She laughed, so relieved it was like she was floating. "You're right, that is bizarre."

He frowned at her. "Anyway, I took the damn thing, just so she'd shut up about it."

"Right. You really should find a better place for it, then, you know. You especially don't want Amy finding it if it's not for her."

He considered this. "Good point. But when exactly do you think she'll be rooting around in my sock drawer?"

It seemed he was abandoning the task of changing his clothes. He sat on the edge of his desk, and she perched on the arm of his visitor's chair. "Women snoop, Josh," she told him matter-of-factly.

"What do you mean, they snoop?"

"Nothing nefarious, just, you know, a little peak to see if there's any unidentified women's underwear in the dresser, or anything weird in the medicine cabinet."

"Okay so, by women, you mean you, right?"

"Everybody does it!" She defended. "Men do it too, for that matter."

"No, we don't."

"Do too." Cliff was still a sore subject for them, so she didn't mention how her diary was definitely hidden somewhere not-obvious when he was over. "You mean to tell me you've never, you know, checked in the shower to see if there's a men's razor?"

He looked affronted. "I have not."

"I'm not crazy."

"I didn't say you were."

"I'm just saying you should re-hide the ring, because I found it when I wasn't even snooping."

"Alright. Duly noted."

Confronted with the ring again, on the other side of everything they've been through since then, she's still slightly afraid of it. "You brought it with you?"

"Donna, I brought it with me everywhere for the entire month of October. I put it back in my sock drawer when we got back to DC, because I was kind of hoping you'd..."

"Snoop," she completes in a near whisper, and just like that she's crying. She understands now why there are always so many tears during proposals. He hasn't even asked yet - well, maybe he has, in his own roundabout way - and she's dissolving at the mere sight of the ring. "Why?" She forces out. "Why did you-"

"Because I want to marry you, Donna, can't you keep up? And I wasn't sure when the moment would be."

She reaches out and pulls his sunglasses off so she can see his eyes. "This? This is the moment?"

"I thought it could be," he says softly, and there's a hint of doubt there.

"I... I'm not saying it isn't."

It's a small reassurance, but she can tell that it helps. "I think I could be good at it. Marriage, I mean."

"You do?"

"Well, no. I'll probably be very bad at it to start, and you'll have to teach me. But you've said that I'm a quick learner."

She wipes at her eyes, chuckling. The ring is still staring at her. "I've never been married before, either, you know. What makes you think I'll be good at it?"

"You're good at everything."

She puts her hand on his cheek. "Josh..."

"And I'll get good, too," he tells her seriously, "I promise. I'll figure out this whole work-life balance thing. I'll, I don't know, be home by seven? Most nights? I'll count the syllables in my sonnets. I'll even write you a nice one this time, though I can't guarantee it won't be total garbage, and I'll help you learn the Moonlight Sonata next even though Beethoven is kind of overrated, and-"

"Josh," she interrupts. "You don't have to sell me. You don't have to give me the nine point plan."

"That's just it, though. I want to sell you. I want to keeping selling you on me, forever."

With trembling hands, she takes the ring from the box and slips it on. "I think that, for a politician... that was probably a very romantic thing to say."

February, 2019

"Hey, hon," Donna intones from her place by the stove. Her attention is split between watching a simmering pot and scrolling through her inbox.

"Mm?" Josh hardly looks up from his own station, across the kitchen from her. He's emptying the kids' lunchboxes ("We're raising sociopaths, Donna, who takes two bites of a banana and puts it back?") and prepping them for the next day.

"Wanna hear a poem?"

He sends her a look of surprise. "A poem?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"Just, you know, because." She can't blame him for his confusion - it's not like she reads him much poetry these days. Mostly, she reads him their sixth grader's social studies homework ("This is totally propaganda, right?") and the occasional infuriating Op-ed. "I've got this daily poem subscription thing, and today's reminded me of that Yeats we both like."

The poetry subscription she's referring to has been nice in theory, though she rarely has time to read it. The poems are usually buried under a million other things, and she often forgets them by day's end. But the title of this one had caught her eye, so she'd made sure to pin it.

"The Troy one?"

"Yes." She's pleasantly surprised he remembers. "This one's called Helen Considers Leaving Troy."

He shrugs. "Okay, sure. Go for it."

She peers down at the screen through her reading glasses, which are slightly fogged from the steaming pot, and starts to read.

"After a bottle of chianti:

Don't mistake me, I've pondered this before.

But tonight I'm serious.

One bottle and the end is certain.

Tomorrow: Lawyer. Boxes. Road map. More wine."

It's not exactly an ideal atmosphere for enjoying a poem. In the living room, their eleven-year-old son is loudly playing some semi-violent video game (which they really shouldn't let him, but Josh kind of likes playing it too), while outside the kitchen window, the sounds of the trampoline springs let them know that their nine-year-old daughter hasn't tired of jumping yet.

It's a far cry from Josh's cozy and quiet brownstone, where they'd first discussed No Second Troy all those years ago.

"While paying the bills:

Guess I'll have to give up that whole new career plan.

Academic dreams. House-and-yard dreams.

Stay on like this a few more years. Or forever.

Face the bottomless nights in solitude.

Wither. Drink. Write poems about dead ends.

Drink more. Work. Pay rent. End."

Josh hasn't paused his task - is still making one PB & J, one ham and cheese like he does every day - but she can tell he's listening.

"Now, wretched little me. All this dizzy sadness.

How many kings to tame one woman? Silence her?

How many to put her under?"

Having reached the poem's end, Donna sets her phone down, hastily turning the heat down before the sauce boils over.

Josh sends her a vaguely amused look, licking jam off his thumb. "Is this your way of asking me for a divorce?"

She snorts. "It was actually my way of saying that I don't think I've got that much in common with Helen of Troy, after all."

"Who ever said you did?"

"You did!" She accuses, brandishing her wooden spoon at him. "Back on the first Santos campaign, you quoted No Second Troy to me. You don't remember? You called it my 'Troy to burn,' or something."

"Well I can assure you I meant nothing by it."

"Oh, you're so full of it."

He holds up his hands defensively. "Perhaps, dear, I simply meant that like Helen of Troy, you're incredibly beautiful? Though of course, Helen couldn't hold a candle to-"

"I'm positive that's not how you meant it."

"You'd think you would've realized by now, Donnatella," he gestures exasperatedly, "that I usually have no clue what the fuck I'm talking about."

Distantly, they hear a shout of "Dad said fuck!" from the living room. They share an eye roll at Noah's incredibly selective hearing - he won't hear them calling for him to come set the table, but his radar for profanity is unmatched.

"No I didn't!" Josh shouts back before resuming their conversation, unfazed. "Especially where poetry is concerned. I'll happily admit I'm out of my depth."

"Hm, then just what were you doing all that time you were pretending to study poetry? Faking it?"

"Pretty much."

"And why would that be?"

He smiles widely, sidling up behind her. "There was this really hot girl at the office I was trying to impress."

She grins as he wraps his arms around her waist, swaying her back and forth a couple times. "Did it work?"

"Not really."

"I thought as much."

He settles his chin on her shoulder. "I'm kidding. I do remember quoting it to you, in the bar that night."

"Oh, now he remembers."

"It wasn't my fondest moment, alright?"

"Mm," she hums in accord. "I don't know. I was actually kind of impressed, at the time, that you remembered a poem I'd shown you at all - even if you were bringing it up to be mean."

"Oh. Well, I remember everything you do," he says easily.

Before they get to actually talk about the poem - before she can even respond - the moment is gone. Elise is rushing into the kitchen, tracking mud, something feathered in her grasp - "Bella caught a bird, and I think it's dying!" - and Noah's hurtling around the corner to help, and the oven timer is going off, the sauce is scorching - and Donna's trying to salvage dinner while Josh attempts to calmly inform their fourth grader that the sparrow in her hand is not in fact dying, but dead.

Marriage, as it turns out, is not always so readily poetic.

An hour later, battle worn, Donna's transferring the spaghetti into a tupperware container. No one had felt much like eating after the sparrow (posthumously dubbed "Buddy") fiasco. Josh trudges back into the kitchen through the back door, streaked with dirt, as he'd had the unlucky task of burying Buddy after their brief memorial service ("I can't just throw it in the trash?" - "Josh!")

"The deed is done?" She asks dryly.

He nods, crossing behind her to the sink. "Thinking of leaving Troy yet?" He jokes, starting to wash his hands.

"Oh, I wouldn't consider our suburban life to be quite on par with ancient Troy. Though the word 'besieged' does sometimes come to mind."

"Beautiful eulogy, by the way," he teases. "You really are a poet."

She chokes on a laugh, glad the kids have gone upstairs for the time being. "I've been told I have a way with words. That stuff about flying close to the sun, spreading his wings, it was all off the cuff, you know."

"Oh, I know." He's giving her that look that means he thinks she's crazy - in an affectionate way, of course. Like when she's telling him about Fishhooks McCarthy, or how all poems are love poems, or that the other class mom is plotting against her.

"You're lucky the kids couldn't see you smirking."

"I'll say."

She sighs, shoving the leftovers into their already over-stuffed fridge. "Do you remember," she says tiredly, "when our life was all poetry and music?"

He leans back against the counter, drying his hands on a kitchen towel, and tilts his head quizzically. "Remember when?"

His eyes are glowing softly as he watches her, and it's not quite the burning cities look - it's something different. Something possibly even more intense.

"I mean, I know it never really was." She looks away, inexplicably embarrassed that she'd said anything to begin with. "Because it was also all briefing memos, and sleepless nights, and physical therapy, and-"

"No, I'm saying, I don't need to remember," he interrupts, "because it's all still poetry and music to me."

She hesitates. "You're saying..."

He gestures broadly around them, to their disastrous kitchen and everything beyond it. "Seriously. Can't you hear it?"