�A question many of us were asking at the time,� Leo said dryly.
�Anyway, I took care of everything, without misspeaking, and the matter was wrapped up� or, it would have been if Joshua would have given me a raise,� Donna said.
�How do you get from that to what happened?� Josh protested, his voice getting a strange squeaky tone as he spoke.
�If you had given me a raise�one I definitely deserved, by the way�I would have been able to afford to pay for my dry cleaning and I wouldn�t have had to wear the same pair of pants two days in a row,� Donna said. �So, really, this was all Josh�s fault, not Leo�s. If Josh had done the apology in the first place or if he had given me more than my rent cost in return for working twenty hour days seven days a week my underwear never would have been Fed-Ex�ed to my idiot boss who was then insensitive enough to twirl them around his finger in the middle of the Operations Bullpen.�
I glared at Josh, feeling even more solidarity to what Donna called �the Sisterhood� after hearing that story.
I�m not sure I ever really appreciated how far back Josh and Leo went until the first time I met Mallory O�Brien, Leo�s daughter and arguably one of the strongest women I�ve had the pleasure of meeting.
Josh greeted Mallory with a hug and a kiss on the cheek and she smiled at him the way little sisters tend to smile at their older brothers. �How�s the kid?� Josh asked.
�Good. Staying with my mom while I�m out here with you guys,� Mallory replied. �How�s your mom? She mentioned that Mrs. Brandon was sick the last time we talked.�
�Honestly, Mal, I think you talk to my mother more than I do,� Josh said with more than a little regret in his voice. �Who the hell is Mrs. Brandon?� Mallory rolled her eyes and explained, with a patience born of someone who had spent an inordinate amount of time around Joshua Lyman, that Mrs. Brandon was his mother�s next-door neighbour and part of her regular Thursday night poker game.
They chatted for a few more minutes before the topic of conversation turned to politics and an education bill that Matt wanted a teacher�s opinion on. As they left the room Josh put his hand on the middle of her back to lead her around the interns and volunteers that crowded the halls. I�d seen him do this with other people before, though the way he did it was different depending on the person. With Donna it was a little possessive, his hand lower on her back, and the way he does it is just sexual in some way that I can�t quite name. With CJ Cregg its brief, a guiding hand that�s there one moment and gone the next because he knows that she needs to know that he�s still there, that he�s still fighting alongside her in the good fight. With everyone else it�s just an instinct, I think, for him, and it�s not clear if anyone, even Josh himself, realizes that he does it. But with Mallory everything about the way he is around her, including his hand on her back, screams �do not mess with my family� in a way that doesn�t appear to make Mallory feel smothered by her surrogate big brother.