"I got an airplane hangar out there filled with 500 strangers looking to me for direction, I got a candidate who doesn't trust any of them—and frankly, neither do I—and if you think I don't miss you every day..."

~~~~~

By the time Josh got home that night, Donna thought she'd gotten over most of her hurt and confusion. Not completely, but enough that she felt she could discuss the situation calmly and rationally with him. Until he walked in the door and all the doubts she had, all the anger and uncertainty, came rushing back.

"Why didn't you warn me?" she asked softly, not even giving him a chance to say hello first.

"I could ask you the same thing," he answered just as softly, looking at her with those heartbreaking eyes. "Donna, you had to have known there was no way I could hire you."

"I didn't," she insisted, shaking her head.

After all the times she'd turned down his offers, she'd thought he'd been wary of approaching her again, despite her repeated hints. So after a week had passed and he still hadn't asked her to join his team, she'd taken the bull by the horns and gone to him.

And he'd turned her down, citing all the work she'd put into Russell's campaign as the reason why.

Floored, she'd been unable to do anything but retreat in embarrassment. And now he stood before her, telling her again that he never would have approached her, never would have hired her. Her cheeks flamed with humiliation.

"How could you /not/ have known?" he asked, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "It's been a week, Donna! A whole week since the nomination. You think I didn't know you wanted a job that night? You think I didn't notice? And in all that time, it never occurred to you even once that I /couldn't/?"

"No," she interrupted him, mild desperation tingeing her voice. "I thought you were trying to…" She stopped and took a deep breath. "I thought you were still trying to give me space. I didn't think –"

"No, you didn't," he agreed. "How the hell -- /Now/, Donna? You couldn't have figured this out six months ago when I could have still hired you with some credibility?"

"Six months ago, I would have been your assistant," she argued. "I needed more than that."

"This again? God, Donna. You wouldn't have been! I've been telling you that over and over and over again."

"Yes, I would have," she told him levelly, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. "Without the experience and without the credibility I gained on Russell's campaign, I'd have been nothing more than your assistant. If not in title, then in actual responsibility. But this… it would have been different. I would have had a say in how things happened. We would have been more like equals."

"You were always my equal," he admitted softly, and Donna could hear the sincerity in his voice, hear the sadness too. "I know you don't believe that, but you were."

"I needed to prove it to everyone else before I could start to believe it myself," she said somewhat deprecatingly.

"Who cares what everyone else thinks?" he asked plaintively as he started to pace.

"/I/ care! Do you think it was easy for me when CJ pointed out that I was staying in a dead-end job because of you? Or whenever Bruno or Hutchinson or whoever treated me as if I wasn't even in the room? Knowing that my input would never be considered because I was just someone's assistant? I needed to prove it to them," she cried.

"You did. You proved it," he argued, running a hand through his hair again. "You've proven that you're important. People listen to you now."

"Yes, because of the job with Russell! Which is why you're not --"

She stopped and stared at him, suddenly remembering another conversation, another night they had talked quietly in the dark, when he'd been miserable and uncertain and she'd had to pull the truth out of him. But apparently, he hadn't told her everything. "People listen to me," she said slowly. "The press."

He clenched his jaw and wouldn't look her in the eyes. "Yes."

"The press," she repeated. "You knew, didn't you? Back during the Hoynes thing. During the California primary. That night… that was one of the things you were trying not to tell me."

He looked down, remaining stubbornly silent.

"You knew that something like this could happen. You were doubting yourself, but you were also… God, Josh."

"Donna…"

"No! You /knew/. You knew and you didn't tell me," she accused, her eyes going wide with hurt.

"You wanted more responsibility, Donna, and you were getting it. You were so damned happy. What was I supposed to do? Say, 'Hey, by the way, I think I've fucked Matt Santos over with this whole campaign, but just in case I haven't, don't take the spokesperson job'? Tell you that the things you wanted most – more responsibility, more growth, a greater sense of self-worth – were bad things?"

"You could have warned me," she protested.

"No, I couldn't have. Because then I would have been holding you back again." He looked at her briefly and then turned away and fiddled with a handful of CD's that were stacked on the table. "I don't want to hold you back, Donna. Not then and not now. I know I'm not enough for you, but I want to at least give you what you need."

"Josh…"

"Don't," he warned, and her heart broke at all the pain he managed to pack into such a small word.

He'd been keeping it from her for her sake, so that she could have everything she wanted. And it was hurting him, she could tell. The fidgeting, the slump of his shoulders, the refusal to meet her eyes… Everything in his body language told her that he thought this was enough to push her away from him for good. She couldn't have loved him more at this moment if she had tried.

Taking a step closer to him, she laid a hand against his shoulder. "Josh?"

When he still didn't turn around, she moved in front of him, cupping his chin in her hand and looking directly in his eyes. "Josh? You are enough. And I'm not walking away or letting go. Not because of our jobs. Not because of anything."

He shook his head the slightest bit, as if he didn't believe her. She offered him a tiny smile and added, "I'm here for the long haul."

"You're not angry because I turned you down?" he asked, squinting at her uncertainly.

"Hell yes, I'm angry," she said, the small smile on her face belying any real anger. "And professionally, I'm going to be pissed at you for a little while yet. But personally, I'm still going to be right here, distracting you from baseball and making you keep my feet warm in bed."

She was gratified to see a little spark back in his eyes. "You realize those personal and professional things aren't exactly compatible, right?"

"Yes, but when have I ever worried about details like that?"

"Good point," he said, chuckling and pulling her in for a hug, which she returned fully.

~~~~~

"You deal away my education plan, you don't give me a heads-up on the political tsunami of the week; right now, I am the only thing between Matt Santos and the megaphone through which he is going to trash his own party's White House."

~~~~~

"Santos really broke a bed?" Donna asked as soon as she picked up the phone. He glanced at Santos, who was in the middle of answering some questions from the town hall meeting and headed for the exit.

"Yeah. With a little help from his wife."

"Wow, we've never…"

"And we won't," Josh responded immediately, walking out of the conference hall into the hot Florida sun. "We're not getting our names in the press because of a bed."

He could hear the laughter in her voice when she answered. "That's sweet. In a very prudish kind of way."

"Trust me, there's nothing prudish about it. It's purely selfish. I don't want anyone contemplating your talents in bed but me."

"Josh?"

He squinted up at the sky. "Too much Neanderthal?"

"Yes."

"Why does Florida have to be so sunny and hot?" he complained, as he took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

"Because it's summer and it's Florida," Donna told him with calm logic. "You have a real problem with our 27th state, don't you?

"I have multiple problems with it. Right now my biggest problem is that it's not Washington DC, where I'd be close enough to brain Toby with something large and heavy. Do you know that he –"

She interrupted him. "Josh, don't. Arguing with CJ and Toby isn't going to make things better and it may just make things worse. They're dealing with a lot over there right now."

"I’m dealing with a lot over /here/ right now!" Josh complained. "A candidate who won't let me filter out all the crap, a Communications Director who's --"

"So stop thinking about all that. Think about what you're going to bring me back from Tampa instead."

Why, when all he wanted to do was a have a full blown rant, did she have to be so sound and reasonable? She was driving him insane. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "We're doing this again?"

"Yes."

"You realize that this isn't like a State visit by the President, right? That I'm not actually leaving the continental United States?"

"Josh…"

He sighed, knowing it was impossible to resist her when she used that voice, the one that blended sultry seductress and wheedling female perfectly. "Fine. I'll bring you back something."

"Something shiny."

"Shiny? Like a fish or something?"

"Shiny like a shell. Or a dolphin charm. Be creative," she instructed.

"Ahkay. Shiny, metallic and creative. Got it." He paused. "You know, you're getting really good at this."

"At what?"

"Distracting me from my troubles while at the same time getting me to cave in to your demands."

She laughed. "I know."

"Come on the road with me," he said, suddenly wishing that she were actually with him, instead of on the phone.

Her answer was prompt and short. "No."

"Why not?" he grumbled.

"Because you have a job to do and I have a job to look for, and if I was on the road with you, we would both be distracted.”

God, he missed her. He looked up at the sky again, hoping for some divine answer on how to be with her and get the job done at the same time. "I hate it when you're like this."

"Right?" she guessed, smugness coming through loud and clear in her tone.

"Yeah. Look, the Congressman's going to be done soon, so I have to go. I'll call you tonight."

"Tonight," she agreed. "And then you can woo me with more sweet words about how you want me there."

"It's a guarantee," he answered before hanging up the phone with a sigh.

~~~~~

"New CNN poll. Vinick's lead is down to five."

"Five?!"

"And the Zogby poll just gave us the lead in Maine."

"We've got momentum, baby! We've got the big mo!"

~~~~~

"So… I was thinking of flying out to Madison tomorrow," Donna told him during their nightly phone call.

"Madison? Why?"

"Gee, I don't know. My entire family lives there?"

"Yeah," Josh replied. "But why now?"

"Peter just won some innovation in technology thing. There's a dinner on Friday. And since you're not home…" She took a deep breath. "I need to think about what I want to do next. You were right about the offers. Andy made a particularly interesting one, and Katzenmoyer's office has called numerous times, but I want to be sure. I don’t want to rush into anything. And I think a few days away from here might help."

"You're sure?" he asked, his voice sounding unusually husky.

"I'm sure."

"I'll be back in DC on Tuesday," he reminded her.

"I know," Donna told him. "I'll try to be home by then." She paused and then added very softly, "I miss you, you know."

"I miss you, too."

~~~~~

"Joey Lucas called; said there might be some movement in the polls. All the Sunday morning shows are going to make Matt Santos' Education Week the elite political story."

"Imagine that."

"We came here to talk about education, and we spent the whole day getting people to talk about education."

"Sometimes a little religion helps the medicine go down."

~~~~~

"Hey, how are things in the heartland?" Josh asked her a few days later.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"You know what I meant."

He heard her laugh. "Madison is fine. My mother's been asking me what I plan to do with my life now, as if working on a presidential campaign wasn't an accomplishment, but otherwise…"

"It's the same as it ever was?"

"Letting the days go by," she replied with a small snort.

Josh was quiet a moment. "Listen, I called to tell you that I won't be back in DC like I planned," he told her with some hesitation. "We've got Cleveland, then Pittsburgh again, and, I don't know, some backwater hick town in a plains state after that. DC's going to be, like, a two-hour stopover."

"I know."

He squinted out across the airport terminal. "You know? How the hell do you know?"

"You think I don't get CNN in Madison, Wisconsin? Between the thing with Farad and Santos' answer on Intelligent Design, I figured you'd be overwhelmed with things right about now."

"And..?"

"And I've called the airlines and extended my stay here for another few days," she said, sighing a little.

"You're not, you know, planning to stay or anything, are you?" he asked, worry about what the sigh meant making his voice higher than he cared to admit.

He heard another sigh. "Josh? What did I say the other day? About the long haul?"

"That you were planning to stick around. But Donna…" Josh whined, wanting to kick himself for sounding so needy. "Just… Remember that your entire family isn't in Wisconsin. Some of it's based in DC. OK?"

"The most important part."

He could hear the smile in her voice and it reassured him. "OK. Listen, the flight's going to be boarding soon. I should go."

"Go. I'll talk to you later. You can tell me how the thing goes."

"I will," he promised, feeling slightly more lighthearted as he clicked his phone shut and headed for the gate.

~~~~~

"We start firing people, it's going to look like the campaign's in trouble."

"The campaign is in trouble; it'll look like we noticed."

~~~~~

"God, we had to fire people today. One of them was an aide that's been with Santos for ages and –"

"Josh?"

" -- there wasn't anyway to get around letting him go without pointing out that we're stagnating –"

"Josh." Her voice was firmer this time.

He paused. "Yeah?"

"Did you see the news?" Donna asked.

He was surprised at how serious she sounded and his forehead crinkled. "No. I've been in and out of meetings for most of the day. And on planes for all of the rest of it. You ok?" he asked, concerned.

"I’m fine," she assured him. "It's Toby."

He frowned. Why was she talking to him about Toby? They'd barely even spoken to each other the past few weeks. "Toby."

"He's the leak, Josh."

Blinking rapidly, he tried to get his brain to process the information. "Toby?"

"He confessed."

"What?" he asked, still not quite absorbing what she was saying.

"He confessed to being the leak," she repeated.

"No, that can't be right. Toby would never… They got it wrong. I'll call. I'll talk to CJ. To the President. I'll –"

"You can't fix it, Josh." He could hear the sadness in her voice. "It's done."

He blew out a breath, wondering what had made Toby do it. /Toby/. The righteous, self-sacrificing bastard… He turned his attention back to Donna. "He really leaked it?"

"Yes. I called Margaret and –"

"You know, you two really need to stop doing that," he told her, concern for Toby and for the ramifications of his confession on the White House and the campaign making him sound harsher than he intended.

"I know," she said, quietly. "But she confirmed it."

"Ok." He slumped against the wall and gripped the phone tighter. His voice was husky with emotion as he asked, "Are you coming home now?"

He needed to know she would be there when he got back, the one constant he could count on.

"I'm trying to get a flight home tonight, but there's a convention and… I'm trying."

"Try hard," he pressed.

"I will."

"I…" He stopped, then whispered, "I love you."

"I know. I love you too," she said, her breath hitching. "And I'll be home soon."

"Yeah." He pulled himself away from the wall. He couldn't let this sidetrack him. He had a congressman to get elected and a staff to restructure; thinking about Toby wasn't going to help with those things. Still, he had to know what was happening. "If you hear anything else…?"

"I'll call," she promised.

"Good." He hung up, feeling lost and more than a little anxious to be home.

~~~~~

"You hired Donna Moss?"

"No, I picked her off the street and put her on national television."

"She was the absolute wrong person for that hit on Vinick. Didn't we say forty-something with kids?"

"We said a woman, and she was great!"

~~~~~

Six hours.

It had been six hours since Lou had shut her and Josh up together in the makeshift staff office in Michigan. Slightly less than six hours since she'd interrupted them mid-argument. Five hours since Donna had made another statement to the press. Four since they'd boarded a plane back to DC. Three since she and Josh had stared at each other awkwardly across the plane's narrow aisle. Two since they'd deplaned and shared a tense car ride back to headquarters. One since he'd called a full staff meeting

And only five minutes since he'd made a dig at her latest suggestion, dismissing it as irrelevant and unnecessary.

Donna seethed. Her suggestion on how to deal with the negative ads was good. She knew it, and everyone in the room knew it. But Josh stubbornly refused to listen to anything she said, treating her as some inexperienced temp who didn't know the first thing about how a presidential campaign worked.

So when he called the meeting to an end, having ignored nearly every word she uttered, she stopped him from leaving with a not-so-gentle grip on his arm.

He nodded to Lou and the rest of them, indicating that they should go ahead without him, then stepped back into the room and closed the door behind him. He looked amazingly calm, and if it weren't for the clenched jaw and the small tick in his cheek, Donna might have even fallen for his act.

"What was that?" she hissed, scowling at him.

"What was /what/, Donna?" he asked mildly, flipping through the file in his hands.

"You. Me. This meeting," she said. "Treating me as if I was only the temporary help, here to aid you in getting over the backlash from the abortion ad and that's it."

"Newsflash, Donna -- you /are/ the temporary help," he snapped back, finally looking directly at her and tossing the folder onto the table. He leaned forward aggressively. "You're here until Lou manages to dig up a forty-something soccer mom and not a minute longer. So if you think I was treating you any less than you should have been, maybe you need to reexamine what you're doing here. And how your place as an emergency ad-hoc spokesperson has little to no bearing on the rest of the campaign."

She refused to back down. She'd worked hard to get where she was. Very hard. And no one, not even Josh, was going to stop her from holding on to this job for as long as possible. Permanently, if she had her way.

"The point is – for now, at least – I /am/ a member of your staff," she reminded him. "You shouldn't be letting personal issues interfere with political ones."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have clandestinely joined my campaign after I turned you down," he snapped back, returning her glare.

"I can't believe you!" she exclaimed. "Lou, Santos, the DNC… no one else cares! No one but you."

"Yes!" he bellowed. "Because you knew how I felt and you took the job anyhow."

She threw her hands up in the air. "I didn't even know it was for Santos!"

"Who the hell did you think it was /for/ then?! The mayor? Of course it was for Santos!"

She reigned in her temper and told him as levelly as she could, "I got a call from the DNC. They'd seen some of the stuff I'd done for Russell and thought I might be the ideal spokesperson to set up some pro-choice buzz. I swear I didn't know it was specifically for Santos until I got there and they gave me the statement."

"And when you did?" he snapped.

"What was I supposed to tell them, Josh? 'No, sorry, my boyfriend already sent my sorry ass packing so I'm going to have to turn down this golden opportunity'?"

"Yes!"

"Josh! No. This is my career we're talking about here! When the DNC asks you to do something, you do it. You of all people should /know/ that."

"That doesn't explain why you're still here," he bit out, his jaw clenching. "You did the press briefing. It's done. Now go home."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No. It doesn't matter how I got hired; I did. And I was /good/. You saw that for yourself. You're just too stubborn to admit that the DNC was right. Or that Lou was right for wanting to hire me permanently."

His mouth twisted. "I’m campaign manager and /I/ control who stays and who goes, not Lou, not the DNC. Resign from my campaign or I'll fire you."

"You can't fire me."

"Swear to god, Donna, if you say 'impervious' --"

She glared at him. "Santos can use me."

"So can a dozen other congressmen! None of whom are running for President. Work for one of them!"

"No," she repeated firmly. "This is big, Josh, bigger than some state election. And I want to be a part of it."

"You can't be!"

"I can," she insisted.

"No, you really can't," he replied nastily. "You're a temp. Nothing more."

"You're an ass," she told him, refusing to sink to his level.

"And you're a –"

"Don't you dare!"

"Or what? You'll quit? Go ahead!"

They glared at one another, each breathing hard.

And then the irony of it hit her. He'd been forced to turn her down even though he desperately wanted to work with her again. And she'd been forced to walk away even though she wanted the same thing. Now they both had what they wanted. And they were arguing about it.

She couldn't quite hide a small smile as she thought about the things they'd said.

Josh's eyes met hers and, after a brief moment, she saw a flash of understanding there. His lips twitched into a half-smile. "Burgers like hockey pucks?"

She arched a brow at him. "References?"

"You know, for the record," he said, his smile getting bigger.

"Of course. The record," she repeated, a wide grin replacing her small smile. "Which record would that be?"

"The one of you and me. Or the work one. Either," he answered, clearly trying to look as if it didn't matter.

They just looked at each other for a long moment before erupting into laughter. When their mirth finally subsided, Josh moved around the table and pulled her into a brief hug.

"Definitely the one of you and me," he said, letting her go to place a hand on her back and guide her out of the conference room.

"There's really a record of you and me?" she asked, amused.

"Yes," he answered as they headed down the hall towards his office. "Did I hear wrong or did Lou compare us to peas in a pod?"

"You mean when she locked us together in the hotel bedroom? I honestly don't know. I was too busy hating you," Donna admitted, falling into step with him.

He turned slightly and arched an eyebrow. "Hating me?"

"Briefly. For a very short time. I'm over it."

"Good. That's… good." After a moment of awkward silence, he continued, a little uncertainly, "We're ok now, right?"

"That depends," she answered, taking a deep breath. "Do I get to keep the job?"

He stopped in the doorway to his office. "Lou wasn't wrong about you nailing it. And I was... Yeah, you get to keep the job."

She smiled brightly at him. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," he warned as he headed around the desk and starting sifting through his messages. "We've still got to nip this abortion thing in the bud. And you need to coordinate with Bram and Ronna on the Congressman's upcoming appearances."

"Already on it," she said, making a note in her diary. "And Lou mentioned talking to Edie about some recent additions to his healthcare platform?"

"Yeah. But talk to Bram and Ronna first. I'm going to want you traveling with Santos the first few weeks, so there'll be time to catch up on healthcare and education then. For now, we have to focus on this thing."

"Got it." She jotted another note to herself and turned to leave, then changed her mind, stopping at the entrance to the office instead. "Josh? Really. Thank you. It means a lot that you trust me with this."

"Yeah," he answered, his head already buried in another thick folder. She smiled to herself at his focus. Come hell or high water, he was determined to get this man elected President. And she was going to be a part of it. Again. The thought made her giddy.

But not as giddy as the words she heard him whisper as she walked away. "You earned it, Donna. You've always earned it. You just never realized it."

~~~~~

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