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MY GUESTBOOK
Mrs. Landingham found out that you Jed Bartlet, the boy-kind she had known most of her life had been shot at from a TV set in the Communications bullpen while she was babbling on about some story from years ago. I found out while I was listening to NPR as I got ready for a blissfully early bedtime, thrilled that Josh had told me I didn�t have to go to the Newseum if I didn�t want to because it was really a Communications thing and he knew I�d been putting in some insanely long hours lately and, while I was worried about Josh and Toby and CJ and Sam and everyone else, my first thought was of the President because the assumption is that if someone shoots at the President, the President is the target.
Mrs. Landingham didn�t know if the President was hurt or if he was even alive until Leo got back to the White House and finished up with the Joint Chiefs and Vice President Hoynes in the Situation Room and had found her sitting at her desk, hands shaking, her eyes trained on an old picture of her and Jed, when he was still Jed to her, in the courtyard of the school that they met at.
At least there she had some comfort that I didn�t. I still didn�t know if Josh was going to live.
Of all the staffers, both on the campaign and in the White house, Josh was the only one who didn�t treat the Bartlet daughters like annoyances. He taught Annie how to play baseball because Doug is useless and Liz had a sprained wrist from falling in the campaign bus. He pulled found Ellie a great rent controlled apartment only a few blocks from Johns Hopkins that even the Secret Service approved of and he didn�t write Ellie off as the daughter who didn�t care about the campaign just because she didn�t want to interrupt her schooling to trail her family around for a year. And Zoey, who most seemed to think was just a flighty little girl who wasn�t even in college yet, turned out to be the most interested in politics and Josh was the one who noticed that. He took Zoey under his wing, even going as far as to explain things to her that I�m sure she didn�t comprehend because she was so thrilled that Josh Lyman, love of her life, was talking to her.
Because Josh was always good with the Bartlet women, Dr Bartlet loved Josh like a son. She had arranged it so that I could watch Josh�s surgery, and I stood in front of that window for nearly two hours, leaving only when the doctors had taken him off bypass and his heart was legitimately beating on its own.
I was going to curl up in a chair in the waiting room that was being kept secure for the White House staff but Dr Bartlet caught me on my way into the room
�Donna, I want you to go home,� she said, her tone both nurturing and authoritative. �I�m going to be here with Jed and Leo is on his way over as well. We�ll keep an eye on Josh while you get some sleep.�
�With all due respect, ma�am, I can�t leave,� I said, straightening my back and bringing myself up to my full height.