Chapter Text
“We’re gonna lose,” Will says, stepping back from the white board and twirling an expo marker in his fingers. “No doubt about it, we’re gonna lose.”
Donna swallows and blinks agains the bright lights of the war room. “Yeah,” she says quietly.
“With the teacher’s union, we’ve lost New York. That’s the ball game. And if the President is throwing his support behind Santos instead of his own VP, well then…”
“Yeah,” Donna repeats, leaning back against the desk. She has barely been off of her feet this whole week, and it is taking a physical toll. “When’s the vote?”
“In fifteen minutes. I mean, I can try to… you know, see if maybe Pennsylvania will swing again but we’d need at least six more states to commit and I just… don’t see that happening.”
“We’re giving up?” another staffer asks.
Will gestures to the board. “You do the math for me. Tell me how there’s a way we get this nomination.”
“Has anyone told the Vice President that?” the staffer asks. “Because right now he’s out there promising jobs and tropical vacations to delegates.”
Will lets his shoulders fall. “I’ll do it.”
Donna turns her eyes to the TV, where there is a warning that the next ballot will begin in ten minutes now.
Ten minutes until her life changes again.
She probably should be more upset about this, more upset that all of a sudden, with a single speech, the campaign that she has worked for over the last six months has fallen to pieces. She probably should feel more strongly about this.
And yet, all she can think about is waiting for the vote to be over.
It should have been clear all along that Russell was never going to win. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but Russell would never have a shot at winning a general election against Vinick. He probably would never have a shot at all.
There’s a part of Donna that doesn’t mind so much. She’s about to be unemployed, sure, but she can probably rely on nepotism enough to get her a job on the Santos campaign. She’s a girl on a budget—she’s not above using her husband to get a job that she is now perfectly qualified for.
Anyway, she’ll cross that bridge after tonight.
Donna goes down to the convention floor to watch the vote, finding a spot near one of the doors, her back against the wall. She watches as each state comes forward to cast its vote; by the time they reach Virginia, Matthew Santos has exceeded 2162 votes.
Her chest tightens, and she isn’t quite sure how to feel, but she catches in the crowd a glimpse of Josh’s stunned face as he makes his way backstage, and she thinks what she feels is pride. She’s proud of him for pulling this off, and proud of herself for growing so much. In a way, without her marriage to Josh, the Santos campaign might have crashed and burned; she should bring that up to Josh when she inevitably asks him for a job.
She opens up her phone to see that Josh has sent her a text.
VP announcement soon. Come to room 1134 at 10:30. Proud of you.
It’s strange, she things, that Josh would tell her to come to a different room, that he would have moved rooms, but she supposes it isn’t entirely unprecedented.
She can’t let herself dwell on the last sentence.
Donna almost feels guilty that she feels as okay as she does. Shouldn’t she be upset? She lost. Her team lost, and her hard work over the last six months has been for nothing. Except that she has grown more and more disenchanted with Russell, and as President Bartlet introduces Santos as the nominee, and Leo as his Vice Presidential nominee, Donna can’t help but feel her heart swell.
She remembers the first convention she ever attended, where President Bartlet was nominated. She remembers Josh slinging his arm around her shoulder, whispering, “How does it feel, Donnatella, to have nominated the President of the United States?”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions there,” she had told him.
He had laughed it off. “Soak it in,” he told her. “Not many people get to experience this. You do.”
“Thanks for.. you know, letting me be a part of this.”
“Thanks for being a part of it,” he had replied. “I’m proud of you.”
Donna has never forgotten those words.
As the balloons drop and the arena begins to clear out, Donna checks her watch. Almost 10:15. Josh won’t mind if she’s a little early, she thinks, and the hotel is quite a walk away. Maybe she should check in with the Russell campaign, see if she needs to do anything tonight, but she can’t bring herself to potentially get wrapped up in a delay. She bites her lip and turns her phone off. If they fire her for it, so be it; her job is pretty much over anyway.
She makes her way up to room 1134.
The room is at the very end of a long hallway, the final doorway she can get to. She takes a deep breath and knocks on it, smoothing out her hair. Maybe she should have tried to make herself look a little nicer, a little less exhausted, but instead she is here, and she can’t wait any longer.
Josh opens the door.
Inside is not the typical hotel room Donna is used to, but a king sized bed covered in rose petals. The room is lit by candles (although Donna suspects, knowing Josh, they’re probably battery operated). Josh is standing there, and while he looks exhausted, he is grinning widely. His jacket is off but he is still wearing a (loosened) tie. He reaches into a bucket and pulls out a bottle.
“Champagne?” he asks.
Donna blinks. “Josh, what is…”
“Well, when I looked back on it, our wedding night was kind of a letdown,” he says. “So I wanted to make it up to you.”
“You should be celebrating tonight,” Donna says. “You… you just won the nomination. Santos is the nominee. Leo is the VP nominee! You should… you should be with them!” And she’s not sure why she’s saying this, because the champagne and the rose petal covered bed are certainly enticing. Still, she has never wanted to feel as if she’s keeping him from something.
Josh shakes his head. “I want to celebrate us,” he says. “We’ve waited long enough.” He pours a glass of champagne and hands it to her, before taking up his own and taking a big swallow.
“Josh… I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s a little cliche, I know,” he admits, “but it was the best I could do on short notice. I’ve been a little busy today.”
Donna raises an eyebrow. “I’ll say!”
“But do you… is it okay? Is there something else? I mean, I know we never got a honeymoon…”
Donna sits down on the bed and takes a sip of her own glass. “Hmm. Will we be campaigning in Hawaii?”
“We?”
“Well, I’m joining the Santos campaign,” Donna says with a grin. “You knew that, right?”
Josh sits down next to her and laughs, one hand snaking behind her back and resting around her side. Donna isn’t sure how they waited so long for this, because it feels so right. “Well, I don’t know how I can say no. You do have a habit of hiring yourself.”
“Consider me hired,” Donna says. “I’ll do whatever job you want me to, but I’m going to insist I get put on the payroll right away.”
“That I can do,” Josh says without hesitation.
“So, back to the honeymoon question,” Donna continues. “Is there a campaign stop planned for Hawaii?”
“Well, Hawaii is really far away,” Josh explains. “And pretty solidly blue. Not usually worth a stop for us.”
“I don’t know, a Republican like Vinick? Could sway some loyal democrats. Maybe we need to cover our bases.” She scoots closer to him on the bed, her leg touching his. He does smell a little bit like he hasn’t showered in days (he probably hasn’t) and part of her thinks that maybe they should share a shower before they share a bed, but he also smells distinctly like Josh, and that is not something she will complain about.
Josh turns to face her, his free hand cupping her cheek. “Believe me Donna, when I take you to Hawaii, it will be for pleasure, and pleasure only.”
“You’ll take me to Hawaii?”
Josh takes the last sip of his champagne.. “That’s something husbands do for their wives,” he tells her, and he reaches forward to brush a bit of hair out of her face. “Do you need to… you know, work tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Donna says, and then she amends it to “I don’t care.”
“Really?” Josh’s eyebrows shoot up towards the top of his forehead as he drinks her in hungrily.
“Really,” she says. “I’m done with this job. I’m just yours tonight. Do you have anything you need to do?”
“The Congressman told me to take the night off,” Josh says. “He’s… he’s busy doing interviews, and so is the rest of the staff, but he basically threatened to fire me unless I stayed out of it all tonight. I guess I’ve screwed up enough in interviews lately that I understand his concern.”
Donna shakes her head. “What you said… the other day. That wasn’t a screw-up.”
“No,” he says. “No, I just wish I could have told you… in a better way.”
“Would you have told me?”
Josh closes his eyes. “I… don’t know that I had the words until that moment where I was fighting with every bit of me to keep them in. And that’s the moment I knew.”
“You didn’t know before?” Donna asks.
“I knew,” he whispers. “I knew… I knew when I almost lost you that I couldn’t live without you. I just couldn’t admit it to myself then.”
“I knew when I almost lost you, too,” Donna shares, reaching out for his hand. Her thumb traces over the long-faded scars on the back of his hand. They’re so small now that no one who didn’t know they were there would notice them, but Donna knows just how hard they are for Josh to accept, however thin they happen to be. “I guess… it’s easy to look back and say I knew back then. It was harder to find the words. I’m glad you did.”
Josh nods, and sniffles a little bit, and Donna can see that his eyes are glazed over. Not quite tearful, but certainly not clear. “I guess we don’t need to worry about that divorce lawyer,” Josh says with a watery chuckle.
“No,” Donna says. “I’m not particularly interested in that. I’m interested in staying married to you.”
He squeezes her hand. “You didn’t have the wedding you deserved.”
“No,” Donna says, “but who’s to say we can’t have another?”
“It’s illegal to get married twice,” Josh tells her.
“Hmm,” Donna says. “Maybe we do need that divorce lawyer. So I can divorce you, and then marry you again. For real this time.”
This makes Josh beam brightly, even through his increasingly tearful eyes. “For real this time,” he repeats. “You know, the fact that you offered to marry me for the sole purpose of ensuring I had access to health insurance is certainly a statement.”
“About the state of healthcare in this country?”
“Well, that certainly, but also about the way you felt for me. I mean… who does that? Who offers their hand in marriage for that sole reason?”
Donna takes the last sip of her champagne and places the glass beside his before shifting closer to him on the bed, their bodies pressed against each other. “I figured if I was married to you, I’d get access to your trust fund someday. And maybe your credit cards. And hey, am I named on your life insurance policy?”
Josh laughs, burying his head in her shoulder, and Donna relaxes into his touch. “I love you,” he whispers into her shoulder, and while she knew that he’d said it before, it now sounds so perfectly natural coming from him that she can’t help but burst into tears. Big, wet, embarrassing teardrops run down her cheeks. Donna has never been a pretty crier—she has never been an ugly crier, either—but she fears she is ruining the moment. Especially when Josh sits up, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing!” Donna protests. “It’s just… god, I can’t believe you just said that to me. I can’t believe…”
“I love you?” Josh questions, and at her reaction, his smile widens. “Believe it, baby! I can say it every day if that helps.”
Donna laughs. “I won’t complain.”
“You never got a wedding, you never got a wedding night…” Josh murmurs. “And tonight is just the start of my quest to make it up to you. If you’re up to it, of course.”
Despite the exhaustion that permeates every part of her being, Donna would never pass up a night like tonight. She would never pass up being able to spend her evening like this, with him. “It would be a pleasure,” she says, lowering her voice. “But… what do you say we start this off in the shower?”
“My wife is a genius,” Josh says, and before she can say anything else, he scoops her up in his arms. Donna would protest, but there is something about his strong arms holding her close to his chest that makes her feel feral and yet completely safe.
Josh makes her feel safe, and that is something she hasn’t felt in a long time.
Their phones are off, cast onto one of the bedside tables, and there are no knocks on their door. The hotel room is miles away from anyone else on the campaign. It is them and only them here.
Her side may have lost tonight, but as she lays in Josh’s arms, sweaty and satisfied and euphoric, Donna can’t help but think that she won.
She falls asleep with her head on his chest, and for the first time in over a year, she sleeps well. She wakes up once, blinking to get her eyes used to the dark room, and moves her head to see Josh looking peaceful in slumber. She is freezing cold, her feet like blocks of ice. The hotel AC is on very low, and she runs cold anyway, but she knows that Josh runs warm. Rather than turning it down, she reaches over the side of the bed to grab Josh’s t-shirt and slips it on over herself, and then presses her feet into his warm calves. The sound of his breathing lulls her back to sleep, and when she wakes up again, even closer to him, her body pressed against his, she notices that it is already eight. She has not slept in that late since she began this job, at least not that she can remember.
Josh is awake, his eyes open, his arm wrapped around her although she can’t imagine how it isn’t numb. “Morning,” he says, his voice still a little rough, although whether it is from all the talking he has done over the last few days or from last night’s more pleasurable activities Donna cannot tell.
“Morning,” she replies. “Sleep well?”
“Better than I have in years,” he replies.
“Your campaign is probably wondering why you didn’t stay up all night celebrating with them.”
“I liked celebrating with you,” he whispers, moving his face close to hers, letting his lips move against her cheek. His cheek is stubbly—he hasn’t had time to shave—but Donna kind of likes that. He should be careful, Donna thinks, or they might get caught up for another hour.
“Much as I want to stay here with you,” Donna says, “you probably should make sure they know you’re alive.”
Josh pulls back a little and sighs. “We probably should talk a little first.”
“You can talk to me whenever you like,” Donna says.
He smiles at that, but it seems more like a grimace. “I want you on the Santos campaign, but I can’t have you be in a visible position,” he says. “You were so visible within the Russell campaign, and since there’s been so much media around you and I…”
“I get it,” Donna says, although there is a part of her that is terrified that Josh is about to say he’ll relegate her to an assistant role again, despite how far she has come from that.
“We’re going to expand our campaign headquarters in DC,” Josh says. “The DNC is going to put money behind our campaign now, so we’ll have some upfront cash to hire a workforce and provide benefits.”
“Like health insurance?” Donna asks.
Josh laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “We’re going to make sure that’s part of the deal.”
“Good,” Donna says, “because the month ends in a couple days and then we’re both out of luck.”
“I think we’ve had enough bad luck,” Josh replies. “It’s time to turn the tide.”
Donna grins at that, but then remembers that she still does not have a clear answer on her role. She sits up a little more in the bed, and looks over at him. “What do you think my role should be?”
Josh bites his lip. “You’re really good at the PR side of things,” he says. “You’re good at dealing with the press, but I don’t want you in view of the press. I think… Donna, I don’t have a deputy campaign manager. And I think you’d be great at it.”
Donna frowns a little bit. “Josh… you’re not meaning this to be like… an assistant role, are you? Because I think we’ve established that I’ve moved beyond that.”
“No, no, no,” Josh says quickly. “No, you’d be my right hand man… woman. You’d be helping me make the big decisions. Although… I hate to say it, but you probably should largely be running things from the DC office. Less visibility that way.”
Donna can’t help the way her face falls at this. “And you’d be traveling with the campaign?”
He bites his lip. “Yeah.”
“So we’d be apart a lot.”
“We’ve survived it before,” Josh says with a sigh.
Donna swallows down her disappointment. “Yeah.”
“It’s four months,” Josh says. “Three, really. August, September, October. And I’d be back in DC probably at least once a week. And we’d be on the phone all the time. But Donna… I need someone I can trust in that position. And I need you. I need you so badly. I know it’s a lot to ask, but it makes the most sense, and I… I want to look out for our future as well as our present.”
She moves her hand to intertwine with hers. “Our future,” she repeats.
His fingers tangle with hers, and his eyes widen. “You need a ring,” he says.
Donna laughs. “I mean, I still have the ones we had for our wedding.”
“Me too,” Josh says, “but we can do better for ourselves. Actually… for that, I think I need to call my mom.” He pushes the covers off of himself. “Donna, come on. I’m going to introduce you to the rest of the campaign staff. As my deputy campaign manager.”
Donna stands up and grins. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he repeats. “And you have another title, too.”
“What’s that?”
Josh comes around to the other side of the bed, wrapping her in his arms, kissing the top of her head tenderly. “My wife,” he says, and while Donna has heard him say those words before, this is the first time they’ve felt like this. This is the first time those words have sent a shiver up her spine, have made her want to burst into tears, have made her feel alive.
My wife.