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[josh pov]

After Sam and I had been out to drinks, life got progressively better. Sam no longer looked at me with that questioning glance, the mistrust. Instead, it seemed to me that he was constantly unsure of everything, but came to trust me again, and that was all that I really wanted. Our friendship grew with this and while I doubted it could ever be what it once was, it was different in a way, better, and just as strong.

I knew that Sam told the others my big, dark secret. I caught CJ looking over at me guiltily, and she approached me several times one day before thinking the better of it, or asking about some work related issue that I could tell was only a cover.

Later that night I invited her out for a meal, and over the main course she told me that Sam had related what he knew of the story to her.

It was one of the only times that I have seen CJ look upset, and she apologised repeatedly for not being a better friend, for not trusting me, for giving up on me when I needed friends the most.

I smiled at her and told her that she had been a good friend. She couldn’t have known about the situation, it was better with her not trusting me. As long as she could forgive me for not telling her, I could forgive her.

She looked up at me, amazed by something that I did not understand and told me that she loved me. In a purely platonic way, she hastened to add.

I tried to look dejected, and told her that I thought her acceptance of my dinner invitation meant that she felt the same way about me. However I ruined whatever effect this would have by smirking and I started laughing.

She laughed too, and told me that whilst she held me in high esteem, unfortunately she felt that wasn’t the right girl for me – she was too tall.

I pretended to sulk and declared that it was far easier having a secret love affair with Sam – he didn’t have such high demands.

There was work to do in our relationship, certainly, but things were looking to be on the mend.

Toby came by soon later, with some work excuse, and although never apologised in words, made it very clear that he respected me, and felt guilty about how he had reacted during the previous months.

That was all that was said on the matter, and we dropped it soon after, falling easily back into the routine of yelling at each other affectionately as we had always done.

Leo was not so direct in his apology, left it unsaid that he thought of me as family, as I did of him, and only commented that he was glad that I was recovering well.

I did not ask for an apology from any of my friends; I felt it was unnecessary. I had done nothing to deserve it, and thought that I had wronged them as much, if not more, than they had wronged me. Given the information that they had at the time, it was only to be expected that they would be suspicious of me, doubt me, try and keep their distance. But things were slowly getting back to normal, whatever normal was, and I wasn’t going to prevent that progression any way.

It was only a few weeks later that Leo asked me to go to Boston, to try and convince a Congressman to vote for the new health care bill. Apparently, the Congressman felt it above himself to talk about it over the phone, and this one man’s vote was, unfortunately, worth four more, and we desperately needed them.

I told Sam of the plan.

“You could go and see…” He tailed off, pausing either to remember a name, or to see what would be appropriate. “Maggie,” he said, finally.

It only occurred to me later what he was trying to tell me.

I didn’t have an address or a workplace, though, since it was only on the plane that the thought came. I pushed it, and all other connected thoughts, out of my head, and concentrated on the role that I had to play in order to try and convince the stubborn old Congressman to vote for the bill.

It turned out that what the Congressman was looking for mostly was attention; the fact that they had flown out the Deputy Chief of Staff for the job was seemingly enough; he had been noticed. I wondered if he couldn’t possibly get his attention some other way, but the job was done quickly and with minimal fuss, and I had the rest of the day in Boston.

I decided that I should give Maggie a call, see if she would like to join me for lunch. It turned out that she was working until seven that evening, but would be free later in the evening for dinner.

I agreed, and then called Leo to inform him that the Congressman would be voting for the bill, and that I had some personal business to attend to, and would he mind if I stayed in Boston a couple of extra days?

Leo didn’t object too strongly, which I thought was an encouraging sign.

I met Maggie at eight and she told me of a nice Italian restaurant in the city center.

We got there soon after, and the party that seemed to be occurring in the middle of the restaurant, a group of women all laughing and talking loudly immediately put me off.

They seemed to be quiet later as Maggie and I were shown to our table, and so I decided not to let it annoy me. I was here for a nice evening out with a very nice, attractive woman, and no one was going to ruin that for me.

Or so I thought. Retrospectively, I realised that perhaps my conversation was slightly inappropriate, that for some reason, as had happened more so since the accident, Donna seemed to creep into almost everything I said.

It started almost imperceptibly, Maggie was talking about her day at work, and somehow we got onto the conversation of my recent stay in hospital. And how terrifying it could be on the other side, from a patient’s point of view.

“But it wasn’t too bad,” I said, “since Donna was there all the time after I woke up.”

“Donna?” Maggie asked, which was only understandable. Somehow I had managed to refrain myself from talking about her on our previous dates.

“My ex-assistant,” I replied, then felt the need to explain further. “We’re friends, sort of, she lives in Boston actually. Moved here a few months ago, I think she works for a law firm here.” And thus the rambling and ‘Donna-name-dropping’ began. Which isn’t particularly recommendable for a date that you’re trying to impress.

Soon we were talking about something else entirely unrelated – how the campaign was going. I said that it was going as well as could be expected considering the circumstances, the President’s MS.

“How is he?” Maggie asked.

I smiled. “That was the first question Donnatella asked as well. The rest of us were worried about our jobs, she was just worried about how the President was.” I finally brought myself back to the present. “He’s fine as far as I know. The First Lady is taking good care of him,” I said.

Quite frankly I didn’t know much about his condition, Donna was the one who did all the research on the topic. And, understandably, the President wasn’t overly keen on us asking how he was every five minutes.

And so the evening progressed like this, and I knew exactly what I was doing. I cringed when I heard myself say Donnatella Moss for what seemed like the fifty third time, but there was nothing I could do to stop myself. I wondered what Maggie thought of the situation, a forty year old guy seemingly obsessed with his old assistant who was a good few years younger than him. I can’t imagine that she was getting much joy out of it, there was obviously going to be no future between us whilst I was so hung up on Donna.

We ordered coffees, and Maggie went to the bathroom after I had mentioned, off-hand, something about how much more organised I was when Donna was running my life. I apologised at this point, this hadn’t quite been the romantic evening out that either of us had been hoping for, although it seemed now that I had been hoping for a romantic evening out with quite a different person.

Maggie returned a few minutes later, with an unidentifiable expression on her face. It almost looked as though she had been laughing too hard, and then had been shocked by something, and hadn’t had time to recover.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned.

“What? Nothing, nothing. Why do you ask?” she questioned, almost caught off guard.

“You just looked worried is all. Are you sure everything’s alright?” I was impressed at how caring and concerned I was being.

“Your assistant, she was called Donnatella Moss, right?” she asked me.

I tried to think of the reasoning behind this question. Perhaps she was about to tell me everything that she had learned about the infamous Ms. Moss in the last couple of hours in order to torture me before she dumped me. “Yeah,” I replied, almost warily.

“I think, I think that I just met her in the bathroom.” She pointed across the room to where I distinctly saw Donna looking quite distressed, gathering her bag and coat and making an exit from the restaurant. “Is that her?” Maggie asked.

I thought about denying it, but I didn’t think there was much use, she’d obviously already spoken to her. “Yeah,” I said. It seemed as though I had been reduced to one-word sentences.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?” I asked back.

“You’ve been talking about her all night, it only seems right that you actually go and talk to her,” Maggie told me.

“What about…” I started.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright,” she said, smiling, and I knew that she wasn’t lying just to be nice.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I told her, grabbing my coat. I dropped some money on the table, “here,” I said, “use this to pay for dinner.” I kissed her on the cheek and promptly ran after Donna.

I knew that it was quite rude, but I had to speak to Donna.

She was walking quickly along the road, her hair blowing in the night breeze, coat and scarf wrapped tightly around her, and she looked amazing. Better than she ever had in the hospital, when she constantly looked tired, or distressed.

“Donnatella, wait!” I called. She turned round and looked at me.

“Go back to the restaurant, Josh,” she said, but I wasn’t going to listen to her. I had gone far too long without seeing her. I wasn’t giving up so easily.

“Donna,” I tried again, “Donnatella!”

“What about Maggie?” she asked a few seconds later, almost shouting down the road, a warning to me.

I didn’t think to ask about how she knew of Maggie, I assumed that it was something to do with them meeting in the bathroom.

“What about her?” I questioned; I didn’t see the relevance. She was in the restaurant, she had told me to go after Donna; I didn’t see the point.

“You can’t follow me, Josh. You’ve got no right. We don’t even know each other anymore. I’ve got my cell phone. I’ll call the police,” she said. I didn’t understand what she was trying to do, I only wanted to talk to her, and I told her so.

“And you’re only a few months too late!” she said, and I ignored her. I wasn’t going to let her go this time.

“I need to tell you something,” I told her, almost desperately.

“Go back to your girlfriend,” she said. “I haven’t the energy to do this again, Joshua.”

I wondered what she was trying to do to me; I wanted, needed her to listen to me. I wanted to shout, to scream at her, tell her things that I knew that she never wanted to know, and she was just pushing me away.

She turned around and I couldn’t let her go. Perhaps I was being selfish, but I didn’t want to lose yet another opportunity to be her friend. To tell her about the real reason that I pushed her away after we got too close for comfort.

“I want to tell you something,” I tried again. “I’m going to follow you until you talk to me.”

“Then will you leave me alone?” she asked, and I nodded reluctantly.

“If I have to,” I told her. But I didn’t want that; I never wanted that.

“I’ll give you 2 minutes. After that, we’ll see,” she stopped as I walked towards her this time, and I knew that I had to make these two minutes count for more than I ever had before.

“Can we at least go for a coffee?” I asked. “It’s freezing out here.”

She agreed.

We walked in silence to a nearby Starbucks. In between trying to start a conversation I tried to rehearse what I was going to tell her, how I was going to convince her in two minutes to talk to me forever, to forgive me, to stay in my life in one way or another. I had no idea what she was thinking. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know.

We got coffee, and found a couch at the back of the shop. I noticed that she sat as far away as humanly possibly from me, and this hurt almost more than anything she could say.

“Say what you have to say,” she instructed me, and I was almost lost for words. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t remember what I was going to tell her, how I was going to tell her.

“I’m sorry,” I said eventually. “I’m sorry for everything.”

I didn’t know what else to say; should I tell her exactly what hundred thousand things I was sorry for?

Should I tell her that I was sorry that I had ever let her go, that I had lied to her; that I had let us fall so far apart? Should I say sorry for all the times that I had hurt her; for not telling her about the tobacco thing; for being a coward and never telling her how I felt; for letting her slide so easily out of bed that morning and never talking to her about it?

“I’ve lost you. Already. Which I think is a miracle even for us,” she said with a wry smile, and I felt a glimmer of hope.

I smiled almost imperceptibly. My mind was running a mile a minute, trying to tell me what to say, trying to connect thoughts with speech.

What came out instead was “I just wanted you to know… I don’t regret what happened.” It was a strange one to start with. But I had to go where I had started. “The Illinois Primary. Us,” I said, her perplexed look informing me that she had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

Perhaps she didn’t remember at all. God, I hoped that wasn’t the case, I wasn’t sure if I could cope with that. But her face showed a spark of recognition and I tried to regather my thoughts. “But things… it made things difficult.”

I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say, my mouth was speaking without consulting my brain, which is usually where I began to get into trouble. “I’d had some offer, from the tobacco people, they wanted me to help them. They offered me money. I refused. They threatened me; I wanted you out of the way… I didn’t want you involved.” I wasn’t sure whether I’d got the information across I wanted to, that I’d got through to Donna.

This wasn’t what I had come to say, I wanted to tell Donna how I felt, how I wanted us to be friends, at the very least. I wasn’t sure if she believed me, or if she would believe anything I said any more. But I desperately wanted her friendship and I wasn’t sure what I had to do to regain her trust.

“I wanted to protect you. I cared about you, and then after we… after the Illinois thing, I knew that I couldn’t let you get hurt.” I rambled, trying to find something that would make her react in a positive way, but she remained almost like stone, saying nothing.

“You tried to protect me?” she asked eventually. “You tried to stop me from being hurt by being hurtful?”

It wasn’t working, she was going to walk out on me, she had given me a chance and I had blown it. “I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. I knew there was little I could say to make her trust me now.

“You’re lying,” she said, and I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t, but I didn’t know how. “You only wanted to help yourself. I was just a complication. If you wanted to help me, you would have told me. You only wanted to help yourself.” She had stood up in the middle of this, and I didn’t know how to tell her how wrong she was. She was going to leave me again, and although I knew I deserved it, I couldn’t let her leave me again.

“I didn’t know what to do,” I tried for a final time, more desperate than ever, my selfish self unable to let her go without knowing some of the truth, hoping that she might hear and decide not to go. “Us sleeping together confused everything, and at the same time it brought it all into focus.” My voice rose along with my emotions. “I loved you! I knew that I loved you and I had no idea what the hell I could do about it. And there was no way on earth that I was going to let anyone get to you, even if it meant that I couldn’t have you.”

There was no going back; half of the truth was out. I couldn’t let her leave me. I brought my voice down from the almost shout that it had reached, paralleling my desperation, my emotion. “I loved you, and I could never tell you that,” I practically whispered.

She turned and left and my heart was ripped apart. I didn’t follow her, she had heard all she needed, and it was clear what she intended. She wanted nothing more to do with me.

I went back to my hotel room, and discovered that I couldn’t even cry over it. She deserved better, I knew that, but I didn’t want that.

The phone rang shortly after, and I leaped to get to it, hoping that it was Donna, hoping that she had come to the conclusion that being friends would be nice, and just to forget what I had said earlier. However, since Donna had no idea where I was staying, it was highly unlikely that it was her, and so I don’t know why I was surprised to hear Maggie on the other end. After I had left to chase Donna, she had apparently joined Donna’s table and had managed to get her number.

She gave it to me, and I wrote it down, despite my protestations that I had no use for it. She asked how things had gone, and I was as nonchalant as I could possibly be when I said that we had decided not to see each other again. She asked why, and I told her some bullshit nonsense about having nothing in common, and that we had decided that there was no point in attempting to resurrect our friendship.

She didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame her. I lied and told her that I would call her soon, and she said goodbye and we hung up.

I don’t know what was different, but looking at Donna’s number, holding it in my hand, I felt lower than I had all evening. I hadn’t cried much in the last few years, but no one was around to see me, and all of a sudden I felt lonelier than I had ever been, and I broke down.

I woke up the next morning feeling slightly more optimistic. I knew that I had messed things up with Donna, and I felt bad about it. I questioned the sense in phoning Donna to explain, to apologise, but it was seven in the morning and was too early to be making calls on a Saturday morning after a night out.

And besides Leo phoned twenty minutes later to inform me that Congressman Dixon, who had been so accommodating the day before and had agreed to vote for the health care bill, was now having second thoughts and considering attaching a rider to the bill. A rider that would ensure the bill wouldn’t pass.

Leo had apparently tried to no avail to get Dixon to change his mind, and the bill was to go before Congress in only a couple of days. Since I was in Boston anyway, Leo had asked me to try and persuade the Congressman, once again, to change his mind.

I assumed that, yet again, it was an issue with attention, and he definitely had mine. I phoned him up and set up a meeting with him for the morning.

Three hours and a disagreeable lunch later, I was exhausted and irritated, but finally an arrangement had been agreed upon. I had a more distinct dislike for Congressmen than usual and I wondered briefly what the hell they were there for. They seemed to be more trouble than use the majority of the time, and I toyed with the idea of asking the President to get rid of Congress.

It was while I was thinking this over, smiling at the idea that we would be able to pass bills without having to worry about who was on our side for it and who wasn’t, that I had picked up the phone and dialled Donna’s number. She answered, and I realising what I had done I considered putting the phone down. But I needed to do this, so I remained on the line, but didn’t know what to say. The idea of saying hello didn’t occur to me until Donna threatened to report me to the police for the second time in two days.

“No, no!” I said quickly, finally remembering my manners, or what there was of them. “It’s me, it’s Josh,” I said, anticipating the slamming down of the receiver.

“Josh!” she replied, almost surprised, as was I that she was actually talking to me and not threatening to report me to the cops. “Actually…” she started, but I had already started to speak in fear that if I didn’t say what I wanted to quickly, she would, indeed, hang up on me.

“You first,” I said after a second, as she said exactly the same thing. “No, you!” Again, at the same time. Cue laughter – at the same time.

There was another pause while we both decided who would actually speak. She started first. “Go on.”

So I began to ramble. “I was just phoning to apologise about last night. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t drink. We came to that conclusion years ago. I didn’t exactly come across as I was hoping. Can you forgive me?” I formed answers in anticipation of her “no” answer, but it didn’t come. There was a silence for a couple of seconds before she responded.

“Maybe we could try again.” I let out a sigh of relief.

“I’d like that,” I said, thinking that my fortune had at last changed. And from then on the awkwardness dissolved and we were able to talk to each other easily.

I was getting ready to go out the next night when I heard a knock on my door. I had no idea who it could be, and when I opened it I saw Maggie standing there. I invited her in.

“Josh,” she began. And then nothing was said for a few moments.

I wondered if I was supposed to be saying something, then decided that I should, but didn’t know what to say. When she started to talk again I realised that my moment had passed. Whatever it was that I should have said was unsaid and Maggie came to a decision.

“It’s not going to work out between us, is it?” she asked, and I thought about telling her that of course it would, and then just not phoning her, but that wasn’t fair to her.

“I don’t think it helps that we live in different states,” I admitted.

She laughed. “I don’t think that’s the reason. Long distance relationships require interest from both sides, and there’s more coming from me than from you.”

I started to protest. “I do like you, Maggie, really I do.”

“I wasn’t asking that,” she said. “I know it, but not enough. And I’m not blaming you for that, there’s nothing either of us can do about it.” There was a pause. “I’m not going to chase someone who is chasing someone else, there’s no point, and besides life is too short for such complications. I like you Josh, I’m not going to deny that, and I’m not going to lie and say that I’m entirely happy about the way this has turned out, but I can’t change it. I honestly believe that if there was no one else in the picture we could have had a good time.”

“There is no one else,” I told her, but I realised that considering what I had been doing for the past few days, few weeks, months, years even, it was pretty much a lie.

She laughed again. “Josh, I think we both know the truth. I’m not Donna, and I’m not going to try to compete with her. Maybe one day we can meet up as friends, but we both know that there’s not going to be more there.” She looked at me. “Feel free to pipe up here with declarations of your undying love for me,” she said.

I got flustered and started garbling.

She laughed at me. “I wasn’t being serious. I would have liked it, but it’s not going to happen.” She turned round towards the door, and I followed her and opened it up for her. She gave me a kiss on the lips, and for a moment I wanted to tell her not to give up on me, but it would be pointless.

“Bye, Josh,” she said. “I really wish we could have met some other time,” she continued regretfully.

“I’m sorry, really I am,” I told her.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Whom we fall in love with is, unfortunately, nothing we can choose,” she said, and I knew that was all we could say. She turned and left, and I watched her walk down the corridor and disappear into the elevator. I wanted to call out to her, to bring her back, to stop her, but I didn’t.

I was a little late meeting Donna, and she looked worried until she saw me. “Sorry for being late,” I said.

“Your watch still sucks?” she asked.

“Umm, no, I had a visitor. Maggie came round to see me,” I briefly explained. “She wanted to say goodbye and good luck for the future.”

“You split up?” Donna asked, and I couldn’t tell whether she was interested or just being polite.

I nodded. Donna didn’t reply.

I bought us some drinks, and we sat in silence for a while as Donna played with her napkin. I tapped my fingers on the table, trying to think of some earth shattering opening line. The best I could come up with on such short notice was “so.” Not the greatest opener ever.

She smiled, and nodded.

“So,” she replied. And I smiled and nodded. And we continued nodding. Until she started to laugh. I realised that we looked ridiculous, and promptly halted the nodding.

“Oh,” I said intellectually, before I started laughing as well. I eventually saw that nothing was going to be said unless I started some sort of conversation. That is, of course, if we didn’t want to be sitting nodding and laughing all night and not actually saying something.

"Listen. I just wanted to apologise about last night. Again. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you off, it’s just a habit I’ve acquired. Useful for irrational Republicans, not so much for friends.” I seemed to be apologising an inordinate number of times in the past few days. I wondered what had come over me.

“I’m sorry that I walked out on you,” she countered. “It was out of order, it was rude, I should have at least listened to what you had to say.”

We argued for a minute or two over who was more at fault, finally agreeing that since pretty much half the world’s problems were my fault, it was only fair that I take responsibility for this one as well. After this, it was like on the phone, old friends, covering almost every topic that we could think of. It was nice, I had to admit; it was really nice. We drank a fair amount, becoming more relaxed and less careful about what we were saying as we drank more. Eventually we reached the stage where we decided that it was safe to talk about what I had said the night before.

“I thought we were ignoring everything I said last night because I was an idiot?” I said when Donna brought up the subject, hoping to avoid a rehash of the previous night’s occurrences, where one of us would say the wrong thing and offend the other. Most likely me offending Donna.

“Well, yes… but no… Yes… whatever,” she said without me understanding what she said. “But what you said about the tobacco thing, and Illinois. Did you mean it?”

I knew what she was asking, she wanted to know if I had ever loved her, and whilst I knew the answer, I thought I’d try and avoid it for a minute. “That they played me and I wasn’t actually a complete jerk, of course.” The avoidance tactic didn’t quite work.

“I mean the other thing. The… the other thing.”

“Yeah,” I said, almost nonchalant.

“So all the things you said, you just wanted to make me quit so I wouldn’t get involved? You didn’t actually mean those things?” I almost wished that we had never started the conversation. I wasn’t sure how to say the right thing, or at least to say what I wanted to say. And the alcohol was not helping in any sense of the word.

“I never, never wanted to hurt you. And I don’t know what to say or do to make you believe that, or to take it all back. If I could…” I took my eyes away from hers, but she brought my head back up, and I knew that she believed me.

“Don’t do this Josh, don’t blame yourself. I hated you at first, but knowing that you didn’t mean it, that you were trying to protect me… I can’t hate you forever. I don’t hate you.” I wondered why she didn’t hate me. I deserved to be hated, but for some reason she didn’t think so any more.

“It’s late,” she said seconds later after looking at her watch. “I’ve got to be at work in the morning

I didn't want the evening to end. And when she offered me coffee, as what I knew to be an offer of friendship, I willingly accepted.

We entered her apartment a little before two in the morning. She got me a coffee, perhaps her second in about triple the number of years.

I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be going back to DC in the morning, and the fact saddened me. I realised that I really ought to go back to my hotel room and get at least a few hours of sleep beforehand.

However, I never got round to moving, and woke up with Donna’s alarm at about half seven, lying on her couch, her asleep next to me. I couldn’t remember ever having gone back to my hotel, but in my sleep confused haze, it took me a good few minutes to figure out where I had in fact ended up. I quickly realised the inappropriateness of where I was as soon as I had figured it out, and jumped up and apologised yet again for myself.

“You don’t want to stay for a coffee, some breakfast, a shower?” Donna asked her eyes still half closed. I didn’t want to leave, but I also knew I had to be back in DC for a lunchtime meeting.

“I’d love to, but I’m catching a plane back at half nine, and I’ve not even started packing yet,” I said, trying not to offend her at the fact that I was running off so quickly. I wasn’t sure if it had worked, so I continued talking. “Thanks for coming out last night, I really enjoyed myself. And thanks for the coffee. I’ll call you,” my mouth was, once again, speaking without my brain engaging it. “Do I have your number? I phoned you; of course I have your number. I’d better be off,” I managed to close my mouth eventually, not an easy feat.

I went to open the door, then some sleep deprived part of my brain decided otherwise, and I found myself walking back over to Donna and kissing her, before I walked back towards the door and out of it, shouting behind me “I’ll call you!”

I needed some sleep, seriously.

It was one promise I intended to keep, and I did in fact phone her. She didn’t hang up on me, but neither did we talk about my impromptu goodbye, which was good in some respects, but not so good in others.

I didn’t tell Sam. I knew what he’d say, or at least I knew that he’d either get smug and go for some rendition of ‘I told you so’, despite his never having told me so, or he’d get worried about the both of us. I couldn’t be bothered with either, and so I neglected to tell him.

I think he thought I was having secret phone call sessions with Maggie, rather than Donna, since he asked how she was after walking into my office and finding me on the phone with Donna. I said she was okay, which as far as I was aware was true.

The next couple of weeks got so hectic after that, and he didn’t ask again. The election was coming up, and whilst we weren’t involved in it directly, we often spoke with Bruno and the others about it, keeping up to date, running round trying to get numbers, worrying generally about what we would do if things didn’t turn out how we hoped. We tried not to think about it, and no one said anything, but it was hanging over our heads constantly. It was at times like this I wished Donna was back, reassuring us, making me work so hard I didn’t have time to consider it. But she wasn’t and that wasn’t changing any time soon.

Then Election Day came. I don’t remember it being half as frantic and stressful and busy the last time. Perhaps four years had diluted the memory, or perhaps it was because last time it felt as though we had less to lose. I tried to phone Donna a couple of times, telling her to get all her friends out and vote for us, to see if she had any theories about what would happen, but each time I started to dial I would be interrupted. Someone would run to up me with a problem of sorts, or wanting to talk to me, or wanted me to talk to someone else, and I found that it was easier to not try.

When I finally made it down to the campaign headquarters it was a mad house. In fact, it was worse. There were more people there than I had ever realised were working in the White House or on the campaign, and it took a while for me to locate people I knew.

When I reached Sam and CJ, they were making predictions on how it was all going to go. Personally, I was avoiding predictions as much as possible in preference to actual polling data, of which there was little solid evidence of anything. But I quickly tired of all the waiting. I wasn’t a patient guy it wasn’t my style.

It was late before any results came in at all. We got most of New England and the northern states, but lost the majority of the south and southwest, as we thought would happen.

By this time we were all exhausted and starving, and so CJ offered to go get some take out menu’s for us. She arrived shortly after I left to go to the bathroom and I saw her before I actually arrived back at the group.

“Where’s Josh?” I heard CJ ask, and I replied, making her jump slightly.

I waited until the President and the First Lady had said their hellos, and then I grabbed Donna and gave her a big hug.

“Donnatella, I missed you,” I whispered to her as everyone looked at us, almost in shock.

But the numbers we had been waiting for, on California, came in at that point, and everyone went quiet. I don’t recall ever having been quite so nervous in my life, and I grabbed Donna’s hand for support.

I didn’t hear the results over the huge roar that exploded, but I knew. We had won! We had done the almost impossible again, perhaps with a little less style, but we had achieved what we wanted.

I brought Donna into a hug again, this time holding her longer, before everyone else surrounded us, and I hugged everyone.

The champagne was brought out, and the President thanked everyone for their hard work and perseverance and for a wonderful outcome before he opened the first bottle. There was more cheering, more bottles opened, and we all started on the celebrations, watching as the President later went on TV and thanked the nation using the words that Toby and Sam had written for him.

Donna stayed near me all night, going occasionally to talk to some of her old friends, getting more drinks for us, hugging Sam again as his joy at having won got the better of him.

Later we went outside to get some air. We stood out there very early in the morning, her hair blowing in the cold wind, her cheeks red partly from the cold and partly from the alcohol. I was overcome with the need to kiss Donna while no one was watching, no one was judging.

Instead I brought her into a hug, to keep her warm, to reaffirm the friendship between us. I didn’t know if she thought of me as anything more than a friend. Despite my revelation in Boston of my once having loved her and the brief kiss in her apartment, while she had not hit me or warned me never to do such a thing again, she had said nothing in reply, either.

She hugged me back, and I felt a shiver down my back, something to do with close proximity, and she asked if I was cold. I decided that a declaration of my love wasn’t the thing to do at that moment, and replied to the affirmative, and so she took my hand and guided me back inside.

The party had thinned out somewhat by this point, but Sam was still, in a drunken manner reminiscent of what I could remember of the Illinois Primary, urging people to dance.

I didn’t feel the need. Last time had only caused me more trouble than it was worth and so laughing at him and everyone else was enough for me.

He took Donna away from me, and started to dance with her, and I laughed as I watched her face set into a mock panicked look. Five minutes later I found myself rescuing her from Sam’s over enthusiastic dancing, and we danced a while at some distance.

Sam then changed the CD, and a familiar song came on. It was the song that Donna and I had danced to at the Illinois Primary, and I was almost certain that Sam had mischievously switched it on purpose. I looked at Donna, to see whether she remembered, and I got that she did. She seemed uncertain as we stood there until I decided to not let it affect me and pulled her closer.

“I think we should kill Sam for this,” I whispered to her, giving evil glances occasionally at Sam who looked quite pleased with himself.

“You remember?” Donna asked quietly.

“Of course I remember, I remembered everything,” I said, before deciding that it wasn’t quite accurate. “Okay, so I remember some of it. There’s only so much I can do after two glasses of champagne, after all.”

She smiled.

“I’d be more than happy to assist you in killing Sam,” she whispered back after a short silence.

We planned Sam’s demise in detail, although ended up agreeing that perhaps we ought to let him live just torture him for a prolonged period. Sam was still grinning inanely at the two of us, talking to CJ and pointing at us, blissfully unaware of our plans.

The song finished and we remained standing together and dancing for the next song, and the one after that, until we decided that it really was quite late and we should go home.

I asked her where she was staying, and she looked uncertain for a minute, finally admitting that she had no where to stay and was going to go to a motel and find out if there were any rooms.

I told her that that would be dangerous and unacceptable, and that she was going to come back with me and sleep in my bed whilst I took the couch. She didn’t argue.

We arrived back at my house in Georgetown in the early hours of the morning, too elated and too tired to actually speak, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

I offered her a drink, but she turned it down, saying that she just wanted to go to bed. I showed her to my room unnecessarily, since she had visited my apartment many times over the years and knew it about as well as I did. I gave her a tee shirt and some shorts to change into and left her to it.

I waited a few minutes then knocked before asking if she was decent, she replied to the affirmative, and so I entered, got some clothes for myself to wear to bed and started to take a blanket out of the cupboard so that I wouldn’t be cold on the couch. She lay in my bed watching me as I went around the room, but she stopped me once I had grabbed the blanket. She told me in a sleepy voice not to bother, that we were adults and there was enough room to share the bed.

I stopped for a minute and tried to protest, but even half-asleep she was stubborn, and my heart really wasn’t in the argument. I was too tired to really start thinking about the consequences. I went to the bathroom and changed into my makeshift pajamas and cleaned my teeth before re-entering my bedroom.

I paused before I got into the bed, briefly thinking that I shouldn’t go ahead with this idea, but too exhausted to remember why. “I’m not going to even attempt to seduce you,” Donna said, sensing my hesitation. I smiled, it hadn’t even occurred to me, but now that she mentioned it…

“Some other time, perhaps,” I lamely joked. Not that I’d say no if she offered… I finally got into the bed, and tried to stay as far away from her as possible.

I quickly fell asleep.

I woke up to my alarm clock, discovering that somehow we’d managed in our sleep to tangle ourselves up in a mass of limbs, facing each other, my arm around her.

I thought that this was how it should have been the first time round, how it should have remained. She greeted me good morning, and then we were awake enough for the embarrassment of the position to begin, and promptly began to extricate ourselves.

I got out of bed first, and went into the bathroom and had a shower, suddenly smiling to myself at unexpected times when I recalled the evening.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was what loving Donna Moss was about. And I couldn’t think of a better feeling in the world.

I loved Donna Moss and I was ready to tell the world.

I just didn’t know if or how I was going to tell her.

END OF PART SEVEN

[part eight]

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