Mandy leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping her morning coffee as she watched Josh stuff his backpack with the files that he'd strewn across the kitchen table the night before. "Are you still working on the gun control thing?"

He paused in packing up his stuff . "This again?"

"Still," she corrected, taking another sip of coffee. "You never answered me last night."

"I didn't answer you last night because it was two a.m. and I wanted to get the last of my ideas together for Leo before sneaking in a few hours sleep and heading back to work," he groused. "And any discussion with you would have meant waving the sleeping part goodbye."

"There was a time you would have liked a good verbal sparring with me followed by several hours of not getting any sleep," she said, a mixture of anger and regret in her voice.

Josh barely noticed of the edge in her voice. "Yeah, well, not now."

"Obviously," she observed darkly. When he didn't answer, she added, "Besides, getting some sleep wouldn't have been an issue if you'd come home sooner."

He glared at her. "I was working."

Snorting softly, she dumped the remainder of her coffee into the sink. "If that's what you want to call it."

"What?"

"Nothing. It just seems that working is synonymous with spending time with Donna lately."

"I was working, Mandy," he growled. "When I'm in the office, it helps because I can bounce ideas off other people. If you paid any attention at all to how I function, you'd realize that. You'd also realize that I was still working once I got home."

"Trust me, I noticed."

"The White House isn't your typical nine to five job. It requires long hours and an extraordinary level of dedication. Or haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Oh, I've figured it out. I�m just wondering if you've really deluded yourself into believing all that crap you just spouted."

His brows knit together as he stared at her. "Excuse me?"

"Twenty hour days, seven days a week? Even the President doesn't work that hard, Josh."

"Leo does."

"And look where that got him and Jenny."

"Is that a threat?"

"An observation," she snapped.

Zipping up the backpack, he slung it over his shoulder. "I'm not getting into this with you again, Mandy."

"Fine."

"Fine."

The door shuddered as it slammed shut behind him.

*****

"Bob refuses to be trained," Donna announced during breakfast in his office that morning.

Josh, who'd been lost in his own thoughts, nearly choked on his coffee. "Bob?"

"The kitten I adopted this weekend," Donna reminded him, as she smeared a bit of cream cheese on her bagel. "Weren't you paying attention when I mentioned him yesterday?"

He hadn't, not really, but he wasn't about to tell Donna that. "Of course I was paying attention!" he lied. "I just hadn't realized you'd named him Bob."

"Yes." She stopped chewing and leveled him with a look, catching the darkness of his mood and misinterpreting it. "Why? What's wrong with the name Bob?"

"Nothing. Not a thing," Josh answered, his lips turning up in a small, genuine smile - the first of the morning. "Bob the Cat. It's a perfectly fine name."

She rolled her eyes at him, clearly not pleased with his name mocking. "It is a perfectly fine name."

"I just said it was!"

"You were mocking."

"I was not."

"You were."

"Fine, I was mocking," he grudgingly admitted, his smile widening. "Now about the training?"

"He refuses to follow directions."

"How does a cat follow directions?"

"You show him the litter box when he pees. And you put him in front of the scratching post when he scratches. If you do it enough times, he's supposed to learn," Donna answered. "But Bob refuses to learn."

"That's ridiculous! There's not an animal on the planet you can't train, Donna."

"That's not true."

"You trained me."

"You were easy. You're very malleable."

He raised an eyebrow at that. No one, not Leo, not Congress, not his wife � especially not his wife � had ever called him that. "Really?"

"Really. Within a week I had you eating out of my hand," she said.

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Both." Grinning, she handed him a segment of her orange.

The symbolism wasn't lost on him as he popped the piece into his mouth. "Some would argue that I'm not at all malleable. They'd say I was stubborn and uncaring, that I -"

"They'd be wrong," she interjected.

His brows knit together as he thought about his early morning exchange with Mandy. "Would they? I'm not so sure."

She handed him another piece of orange. "They would. You can be stubborn, but only when you know you're right. And even then you're willing to compromise. That says a lot about you."

"Maybe. Maybe not, if I'm not willing to compromise on the big things." She paused while peeling off the next segment of orange and he scrambled to lighten the mood again. "You know there was thing on The History Channel this morning �" he started, his voice purposefully cheerful.

She cut him off. "Josh, is there something�"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "No. It's� Don't worry about it. It's nothing. I'm fine. Everything's fine," he assured her. Leaning forward, he grabbed the rest of the orange from her hands, ripped a section off, and held it out to her. "Tell me more about Bob."

She grabbed the orange back and stood up. "No."

Raising his eyebrows, he asked, "No?"

She shook her head, the barest hint of a smile on her face. "Nope. You have staff. And if I waste any more of your time, you'll be late," she said as she gathered up their trash.

Josh glanced at his watch. It was one minute before eight. Rising, he grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and swung it on. "Don't think this gets you out of more tales about Bob," he warned.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied, smiling broadly.

"Good." He paused in the open doorway. "Donna? Talking to you about anything is never a waste of my time."

The memory of the soft smile she gave him carried him through the next hour with Leo.

*****

"You couldn't have told me what you just told Leo when we talked this morning?" Mandy asked, as they exited Leo's office and headed past the Roosevelt Room.

"No," Josh answered shortly, rounding a corner at such speed that Mandy had to jog to catch up to him.

"It was a simple enough question, Josh. All you would've had to say is 'Yes, Mandy, I am working on gun control initiatives, and I'm going to tell Leo this, this, and this.' It would have taken a minute, tops!"

"It wouldn't have been a minute, Mandy!" he exclaimed in a fierce whisper, pulling her aside by the double doors to the bullpen. "It would have been me telling you how the White House intended to approach the issue and you arguing all the reasons why you didn't think we should. And then it would have devolved into a personal grudge match between the two of us."

"It wouldn't �"

"It would have. You and I can't go more than two minutes lately without getting into an argument. And on this topic, especially �"

"And whose fault is that?" she demanded.

"Mine?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes," she said bluntly. "You were shot, Josh. And now you're working on a gun control bill and you won't talk about it. In fact, you won't talk about anything with me, and I have to wonder if it's just me you're refusing to talk to or everyone."

"It's you," he ground out under his breath. Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he warned her, "I'm not getting into this. Not here, not now."

She muttered something he didn't quite catch but that sounded suspiciously like a slur on his character, then asked, "If you won't talk about it now, then when?"

"Tonight. Tomorrow. I don't know. Later. But definitely not here and not now."

She glared at him for a moment before finally heaving a sigh. "What about the Family Wellness Act? When can we at least talk about that?"

He let out a deep breath. "You want to talk about the family wellness thing? Fine. Make an appointment. Otherwise, I don't know."

"That's the problem, Joshua, you never know," she lashed back, glaring at his retreating back as he walked away.

*****

"Josh Lyman's office," Donna announced cheerfully as she picked up the phone. "Oh, hi, Mandy!" she greeted the caller while looking questioningly at Josh.

He shook his head. "I'm not here," he whispered. "I'm in with Leo. Or Toby."

Donna frowned but did as asked. "I'm sorry, Mandy, but he's not available right now. An appointment? Sure." She pulled his schedule around to face her and ran her finger down it. "He's got about ten minutes free at 3:30. I could pencil you in then." There was another pause and then, "Okay, sure. Bye."

Hanging up, she looked over at Josh, her face carefully neutral. "3:30 with Mandy about the Family Wellness Act."

"Yeah, okay," he said without much interest, before glancing back down at the numbers on the sheet in front of him. "So what's our current tally on the gun lobby?"

"We're two votes short," she answered as she walked over to the chalk board and updated some of the information they'd been talking about. "Brown and Tillotson are lost causes, so we still need Camden and Lassiter to tip the scales."

"Well, I've got Lassiter later today, so maybe there'll be better news afterwards."

She nodded and scrawled in a question mark next to Lassiter's name. Standing back from the board, she made a show of scrutinizing the information on it for a minute before casually saying, "You can't keep doing that, you know."

"Strong-arming congressman into voting our way?" he asked with a small smile. "I think that's the main purpose of my job actually."

"Avoiding Mandy," she corrected, turning her head to pin him with a serious look.

His good mood instantly disappeared. "Donna."

"I'm serious, Josh," she said, stepping away from the board and facing him directly across the desk.

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair, his face tilted up towards her. "She just wants to bug me about how the new health plan still doesn't cover everything," he complained.

"Is there any chance her concerns are valid?"

"No, not at all," he answered, shaking his head. "We'll get what we can this time around and then we�ll hit 'em harder with a new bill the next time. She knows that! You know it, too. The difference is that she's not happy unless she's making me miserable. Trust me, Donna, if her concerns were that important, she wouldn't have let you put her off. She just wants to give me a hard time about it."

She still looked doubtful. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Still�"

He raised pleading eyes to hers. "Don't. Don't start with the thing about her and me needing to talk. Not right now. Not after you and I have had such a good morning."

There was a moment of silence, during which he could tell she was trying to make up her mind about whether to pursue the issue or not. He felt sure she was going to, but she surprised him when she shrugged and turned back to the board.

He slumped in his chair, grateful for the reprieve she was willing to grant him.

*****

"So whose idea was it to sandwich me in between meetings on the Hill?" Mandy asked from his doorway. "Yours or Donna's?"

"Mine," Josh answered bluntly, shrugging into his jacket and moving past her into the bullpen. "Walk with me."

"How could a girl resist such a generous offer?" she snapped.

He headed towards the lobby, not even sparing a second glance at her as he answered, "She can't."

"Is this how we're doing it now?"

He turned to glance over his shoulder at her. "How we're doing what?"

"Talking," she clarified.

"When you want to talk about something you already know all the answers to? Yes," he retorted.

"I don't know all the answers," she said quietly.

He stopped walking and turned to her, his eyes going soft for just a moment. "Is this about us or is this about the Family Wellness thing?"

Her lips pursed. "The Wellness thing, of course."

His expression immediately hardened. "Then talk, Mandy. You've got ten minutes between here and the Hill." He resumed walking, indifferent to how she had to rush to keep up with him.

"Do you really think it's wise to include testing for Down's Syndrome but not Autism? "

"Do I think it's wise? No. Is it what I've got to do to get this thing passed? Yes."

"Then why pass it?" she persisted.

"Same reason as always. This is the way it has to happen this time," he said, frustrated at having to explain it to her yet again. She was a savvy political operative, but she didn�t grasp the compromises that had to be made on some things nearly as well as Donna. "It's the only hope we have for getting a stronger, more inclusive health care act passed later."

She lapsed into silence and he risked a glance at her. Her mouth was set in a grim line and her back and shoulders were rigidly straight. He tried to make a conciliatory gesture. "We're not letting Congress steamroll us on this," he admitted grudgingly. "We're talking to them. And they seem to be listening. We'll get testing for Autism included the next time."

Her back relaxed just the slightest bit. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He continued through the gate and never even realized that she'd stopped following him until he reached the street.

*****

"We did it, Donna! We got Lassiter! And he guarantees that he can get Brown and Tillotson to turn around on the gun issue, too," Josh exclaimed, grabbing her and pulling her into a huge bear hug.

Her mouth was a perfect O of surprise and delight when he finally let her go. "We got them?"

"We got them!" he confirmed, a huge grin on his face.

"We got them!" Her whole face shone with excitement. "We should celebrate."

"The finest muffins and bagels in all the land," Josh proclaimed, snagging the last half of her poppyseed muffin from her desk and taking a huge bite.

"Get your own muffin!" she groused, swiping it out of his hand. But she couldn't suppress her smile long enough to really scold him.

"Oh, I intend to, Donnatella. I intend to," he said, grinning at her. "Is Sam around? Toby?"

"Sam left about half an hour ago to meet with someone about naval tankers," she answered. "And I think Toby was going to meet Congresswoman Wyatt about something."

"And CJ's at the thing in New York," he groused, his mood temporarily dampened. "We can't celebrate without them. But tomorrow, Donna! You, me, Sam, Toby and CJ at the Hawk & Dove. We're gonna celebrate in style!"

"Beer and wings?"

"Beer and wings," he confirmed. His smile flashed again at full force, and he took her elbow and steered her towards his office, rattling off things for her to do.

*****

"Hey," Mandy greeted him later that evening as she leaned against his office door.

"Hey," he replied wearily. He finished jotting down a note and then looked up at her. "We got Lassiter."

"I heard. There was quite a celebration in the building this afternoon."

He looked at her sheepishly. "I was gonna call, but �"

"You were too busy," she finished for him.

He shrugged. They'd had this conversation before. It wasn't worth repeating.

"So� when's the celebration?" Mandy asked.

"Tomorrow. After CJ gets back from her thing."

Mandy nodded. After a moment of silence, she asked, "Are you coming home tonight?"

"Don�t I always?"

"Before midnight," she clarified.

"I've still got some stuff on Voter Registration to do."

"Of course you do."

"Mandy�"

"I�m going home now, Josh. I'll see you when I see you, I suppose."

"Sure."

*****

"So we've got the gun thing and the wellness thing taken care of. Where are we on the Parkland Preservation thing?" Josh asked idly as he threw his a folder onto the desk and leaned back comfortably in his chair. "Did you have a chance to talk with Toby or Sam about it while I was on the Hill today?"

Across the desk from him, Donna peered over the file she was reading. "I did. Do you really want to know what we decided?"

Smiling, he nodded. "I really want to know."

"Because you're such an outdoorsman and care about the future of the American coyote?" she asked.

"Yes, absolutely," he said, grinning and leaning across the desk. "I'm a regular mountain man." He smirked. "So where are we?"

"Sebastian will agree to the extra funding for a refuge on state park land if we agree to more farm subsidies on his thing. Toby's firming up the specific language and Sam is struggling with writing something for the President to say about it at the dinner next week."

"Good," he said, twirling a pen between his fingers. "What about Franks?"

"Franks will agree to whatever Sebastian agrees to." Sighing, Donna set her file down on top of his abandoned one and looked squarely at him. "We should both go home, Josh."

"Have you forgotten that I'm the boss and I get to decide when we go home?" he said, trying for lighthearted and joking and winding up somewhere between petulant and whiny. "Besides, we're almost done with this stuff."

"Which would actually mean something if this stuff was stuff that needed doing right now," she replied.

"You know you just used the word stuff twice there, right?"

"Yes, yes, I do," she said, nodding. "But that doesn't change the fact that none of this is a priority and you're simply using these files as an excuse not to go home."

He sighed, his good mood abruptly disappearing, and turned to look out the window at the darkening sky. "Yeah."

"And yet we're still here, working," she observed.

"Yeah." He was quiet for a moment then said, "You're right. You should head home and spend some time with Bob. Teach him about the litter box. We'll work on these some more tomorrow."

"And you?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Go home," he lied.

"Now?" she persisted.

"Eventually."

"Josh."

"I'll be fine," he said quietly, spinning back around in the chair to smile wanly at her. "Go home, Donna."

"Josh, you have to stop doing this," she told him.

He cut her off before she could make some compelling argument about why he needed to go home and talk to his wife instead of hide out in his office. "I'm not ready. Not yet. I promise I'll go home soon. Does that make you feel better?"

"Marginally. But you can't keep avoiding home � or her - forever," she said quietly, then turned and left.

Josh watched her go, and then he turned back towards the window, lost in his own thoughts.

*****

She was curled up on the couch, reading a book, when he got home.

"Why didn't you ask me to come celebrate?" she asked as she marked her page and set the book aside.

He shrugged. "I didn't think you'd want to go out with us."

"That's not the point," she told him. "You never even asked. I'm an afterthought."

"That's not true," Josh argued.

"It is! I was standing right there, Josh! You asked about CJ and Sam and never once asked about me," she said.

He blinked, thinking back to earlier that afternoon. "You were there?"

She nodded. "Standing right next to the filing cabinets."

"I� didn't see you," he explained lamely.

"That much was obvious," she retorted.

His head jerked up, and his eyebrows drew together. "If you were there, why didn't you say something?"

"You were too busy being self-congratulating and hugging your assistant."

"Mandy �"

She raised a hand, cutting him off. "This isn't about Donna. Or about you and Donna, whatever that may mean. It's about us."

"Us?"

"Yes, us, Joshua. There used to be an us. Has it really been so long that you can't remember that?"

He sighed and sat down. "I remember," he said, rubbing at his forehead.

"I wonder sometimes." She turned towards him. "Josh, why did we get married?"

He shook his head, confused. "What?"

"Why did we get married?"

"Because�" He searched his mind, looking for an answer that wasn't a lie. "Because it was the thing to do. We'd been together for a few years and we'd won the White House. It was the next step. I asked and you agreed."

She smiled ruefully. "I'm beginning to wonder if the next step shouldn't have been to end things instead."

His jaw clenched. He'd known this was coming, that it was inevitable, but hearing her say it didn�t make it any easier. "Mandy�"

"It's a farce, Josh. We barely talk when we're together. Our sex life has become non-existent. We�re not partners; we're roommates."

"We're not roommates, Mandy. We're husband and wife."

"In name only."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying we need to end the farce."

His head jerked up and he stared at her. "This isn't just� marriage isn't just something you give up on," he snapped, standing up and pacing agitatedly.

"It is when it isn't working," she replied quietly.

"Is that your solution, Mandy? We hit a rough patch and you just give up?"

"It's not a rough patch, Josh. It's a gaping pothole."

"Fine, if that's what you think, no problem. I'm done. We're done," he spat out.

"Josh�"

"No, it seems you've wanted this for a while. Well, you're finally getting your wish. I'll talk to the lawyers on Monday." With that final shot, he slammed out of their apartment.

*****

Josh slid into the booth across from Donna "Thanks for coming."

"You sounded a little desperate," she said.

"I feel a little desperate," he admitted.

"What happened?"

"The same thing that always happens. But this time she told me she's done. She wants a divorce," he said bluntly.

She leaned across the table and laced her fingers through his, squeezing them briefly in support. "Oh, Josh. Are you okay?"

Reluctantly letting go of her hands, he leaned back wearily against the leather bolster and shrugged. "We've been having problems for a long time. Since before Rosslyn even. I should have seen it coming."

"Just because you should have seen it coming, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt," she observed.

"Just because it hurts, doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do," he replied, reaching across the table to swipe her drink and take a sip from it. "Ugh. What is this?"

"Vodka Tonic, heavy on the tonic," she answered, taking her drink back and swirling the little cocktail straw around its clear depths.

"I need something stronger than that." Grabbing the attention of the nearest waitress, he ordered a double scotch, straight up, and then turned back to Donna, who was frowning at him. "What?"

She didn't say anything, just looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

He sighed and leaned forward, taking another sip from her vile drink because he didn't think he could say what he needed to say without any alcohol in him. "Donna� It's not because of � it's not because of this," he said in a low voice as he looked at her with earnest eyes.

Her gaze didn�t waver. "Yes, it is. At least partially."

He exhaled loudly. "It's not," he said. "You're a part of my life and your friendship means more to me than I can possibly say, but this thing with Mandy isn't happening because of it."

She shook her head. "I let you get away with staying at the White House late every night, and �"

"Donna, stop. It isn't anything to do with you. Mandy and I were destined to fall apart from the beginning. Our relationship would have gone to hell regardless of whether you'd been here or not."

"No, it wouldn't have," she insisted. "I know you, Josh. You fight for things, especially for the people you love. And you wouldn't have let your relationship with her go so willingly if I hadn't been involved."

He sighed. Maybe she wasn't entirely wrong. But that didn't change the basic facts � he and Mandy should never have lasted as long as they did. They should have never gotten married.

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I do."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

*****

When Josh finally came back home much later that night, Mandy was waiting for him. "What did Donna say?" Mandy asked curiously.

He was startled at the sound of her calm, quiet voice coming from the darkened living room, and he knew that she was probably taking pleasure in that, knowing that she still had the power to surprise him.

"How do you know I talked to Donna?" he asked, after taking off his overcoat and sitting down in the chair across from her.

"Oh please. If it wasn't Donna, it was Sam. And since I suspect Sam's little rendezvous with his naval officer probably lasted longer than dinner, I can only assume it was Donna."

"I'm not sleeping with her," he said, even though she hadn't asked.

"I know," she said with a small, humorless laugh. "That's the truly tragic thing about this whole mess. You're too loyal for your own good, Joshua."

He squinted at her in the dim light. "You wanted me to cheat on you?"

"God, no," Mandy said with a shudder. "But at least if you'd been sleeping with her, I'd have something solid to point to as the reason for the failure of our marriage. As it is, all I have to show for it is a husband who can't even be bothered to come home most nights."

He shook his head. "I don't get it. Why aren't you more upset?"

"Why aren�t you?"

"I am."

"Are you?"

"Yes, dammit! I am upset," he snapped. "I didn't marry you on a whim, Mandy. I didn't do it thinking that in two years time we'd be getting a divorce!"

"Then why did you do it?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I thought I loved you. I do love you. But�"

"Not enough," she finished for him. "Not enough to put us before politics."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "And you do? Did?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't. And there's our problem in a nutshell."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

She stood and picked up her bag from next to the door. "I'm going to be staying at the Park Plaza for a while, until I can find a place of my own."

"Don't go. I can find a hotel or stay at Sam's� something."

"No, it's better this way," she said. "Clean break and all that. Hudson's looking for a pit bull to run his campaign next season. I thought maybe I'd chat him up tomorrow and see if he'd be interested in a cute brunette with great political style."

"You could do worse."

"He could do better."

"Not likely," Josh said with a small smile.

"No, not likely," she agreed with a small smile of her own. She headed for the door and was about to open it when she stopped, her hand still on the doorknob. "Hey Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"About Donna�"

"I really haven't slept with her," he repeated.

"I know." She smiled wistfully, shaking her head slightly before smiling again, a real smile this time. "I just feel like I should say� good luck or something equally pedantic right now."

"Yeah." He was silent a moment. "I thought this would be harder. Feel� harder. But it isn't, is it?"

"No." She shrugged and opened the door. "Good luck, Josh, with whatever you choose to do in the future and whomever you choose to do it with."

"You too, Mandy," he said, raising his hand in goodbye as she walked out the door one final time and out of his life.

~End~