Archive of Our Own ^beta

March 1998

The day after she gets into a car accident, Donna is scheduled for an eight hour shift at the diner. She’d had to beg her boss to take her back after she quit without a two weeks’ notice, which means she can’t afford any more days off, not even with a swollen, bruised ankle, so when her alarm clock blares at five in the morning, she has no choice but to drag herself out of bed and put on her uniform. Mark doesn’t stir as she gets ready for work, but she’s not exactly surprised by that; after he’d left her waiting in the urgent care at St. Mary’s for over an hour the night before, finally waltzing through the door smelling like cigarette smoke and giving some excuse about stopping over at Silver Dollar to celebrate Jeff’s birthday, her expectations for him aren’t very high.

Unfortunately, Mark not waking up with her means she’ll have to take the bus to work. Her car had been towed last night and she knows Mark will throw a fit if he’s the one that has to take the bus to his shift at the university hospital, so she hobbles out to the bus stop. It’s still dark outside, the temperature below freezing, so she waits with her jacket clutched tightly around her and wishes that she were literally anywhere else.

The first few hours of her shift fly by. If anything, they go by a little too fast for her to keep up with. She spends her morning limping back and forth from the kitchen to her tables, unable to ignore the throbbing in her ankle.

As she staggers back to the kitchen to put in an order for a table of eight that she has no idea how she’s going to carry when it’s ready, Donna can’t help but think of the job she left behind.

Ever since she’s been back in Wisconsin, she's actively tried not to think about the Bartlet campaign. She spent the entire eighteen-hour drive to Madison willing her mind to focus on anything other than the people she disappointed by leaving, the future she had only just started to imagine for herself. It won’t do her any good, she figures, to dwell on what might have been. Sure she regrets leaving, but when Mark called to tell her how badly he wanted her to come home, what else was she supposed to do?

Donna shakes her head, trying to physically dislodge that thought. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, one of the line cooks puts her next order up and she has to use all of her mental energy not to trip as she lugs it to her table.

She doesn’t get another chance to breathe until after her shift ends, let alone a moment to sit down. Instead of going home right away, she orders herself a chicken salad sandwich and sits at the counter beside the cash register to eat it. Normally she would be out the door the moment the clock hit 2:01, but she really, really doesn’t want to go back to her apartment tonight. As much as it terrifies her to admit it, she knows there’s nothing left for her there.

So she sits and eats her sandwich, watching the television mounted on the wall behind the counter. It’s turned to One Life to Live, part of the standard soap opera lineup that plays when Katie is working the register, but Donna snags the remote and starts flipping channels. She’s not sure what she’s searching for, clicking the upward arrow so mindlessly that she barely processes the images on the screen. But there’s a delayed spark in her brain a few seconds after she passes a twenty-four-hour news station, making her pause before frantically pressing the downward arrow until she finds the channel again.

When she does, she sees Governor Bartlet on the screen, standing on an outdoor stage and delivering a speech. A banner running at the bottom of the screen helpfully informs her that he’s speaking from a campaign rally in Burlington. The volume on the TV is turned all the way down, so she can’t hear what he’s saying, but when she squints to read his lips she catches enough words to know he’s giving the same stump speech she heard him recite at least a dozen times during her short stint on the campaign.

She watches him with a lump in her throat, her appetite suddenly gone. It seems she’s just barely catching the tail end though, because the Governor only speaks for another minute or so before stepping away from the microphone and walking off the stage. As the camera pans to follow him, Donna catches a number of familiar faces: Toby, Sam, and CJ are applauding the Governor as he walks past. But it’s the last face the camera lands on that knocks the air right out of Donna’s lungs.

It’s Josh.

Though he’s on the screen for less than five seconds, Donna wills time to stand still as she hungrily studies him. He’s clapping for the Governor like everyone else, but his mouth is set in a hard line, his brow furrowed so that his entire forehead creases. He looks rumpled and exhausted and maybe even a little sad.

Of course he’s sad, you idiot, she chides herself, his father just died. She tries not to think about the fact that she’d left him only a week after he’d returned from sitting Shiva for his father.

Even once the news coverage cuts to commercial, Donna continues to stare at the television screen, feeling oddly bereft. She knows it’s unlikely that they’ll come back to the campaign event after the break and that makes her chest ache, because she’s suddenly desperate to hear Toby’s thoughts about how the speech went, see the notes Sam scribbles down as Toby talks. She wants to load onto the campaign bus with everyone else, wedged into the window seat while Josh takes the aisle, passing a package of twizzlers back and forth as they go over his call sheet for the following day. She wants to do something meaningful with her life, not serve weak coffee and rubbery omelettes to customers who won’t remember her name the moment they walk out the door.

Donna knows she can do more, has already proven to herself that she can do more, and so she knows exactly what she needs to do.

She waits just two days, long enough for her cousin’s friend to install a new back driver’s side door on her car, before packing up her life for a second time and driving back to New Hampshire.

April 1998

As they exit the Wisconsin Center after the Governor’s speech, Josh turns to Donna and asks, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?” She’s scribbling something down in her planner as they walk, completely unphased by the lack of context for his question.

“You know, the…smell.” She glances at him with one eyebrow cocked and he gestures vaguely to the air around him. “It smells like a wet dog.”

“Oh. That’s just the way Milwaukee smells sometimes.”

It’s Josh’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Is it designated dog washing day, or…?”

“I don’t know exactly where it comes from,” she says, half annoyed and half amused. “But sometimes when the wind is blowing in the right direction you get a combination of all the breweries and the factories and Lake Michigan.”

“And people live here willingly?”

“About 600,000 of them, yes.”

By this point they’ve reached the bus, which is set to take them to their next engagement. He lets Donna board ahead of him, following her as she shuffles toward their seats near the back.

“So now the Governor is scheduled for a photo opp at…Kopp’s?” he asks, flipping through his binder to find a copy of their schedule. “The ice cream place?

“It’s frozen custard, actually,” Donna replies as she drops down into the window seat.

He doesn’t look up from his binder. “Uh huh.”

“It’s better than ice cream,” she insists.

That gets him to look at her. “Nothing is better than ice cream.”

“Frozen custard is.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Guess who else will be at Kopp’s?” she asks.

“Impressionable voters, I hope.”

“Nope. Well, maybe.” He watches her nose scrunch as she tries to backtrack. “But that’s not who I meant. I meant my parents.”

“Your…what?” he stutters, caught off guard; even though it feels as if he’s known Donna for years, she still manages to surprise him nearly every day.

“My parents?” She’s looking at him with amusement, half concern, the corner of her mouth curled up. “Y’know, the people who raised me?

“I thought they were Republicans?”

“They are. Or at least my dad is, my mom can go either way. But they’re not coming to see the Governor, they’re coming to see me. Since we’re only stopping in Milwaukee and not Madison, they decided to drive up to see me for the few free minutes I’ll have at Kopp’s.”

“Oh,” Josh says. “Okay.”

Her eyes narrow slightly as she searches his face. “What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“I don’t know, you seem…” she waves her hand, searching for the right word, “weird about it.”

“Why would I be weird about it?”

In truth he does feel a little strange about meeting Donna’s parents, though he can’t put his finger on why. Ever since she’d come back to him — back to the campaign, he constantly corrects himself — things have been a bit more…intense, between them. They spend nearly every waking moment together, and sometimes it seems as if Donna knows him better than anyone, better than he knows himself. Meeting her parents feels almost intimate in a way he doesn’t feel particularly comfortable examining.

Luckily, once the bus starts moving Donna drops the subject, instead choosing to point out buildings they pass and share the memories she has associated with them.

When they arrive at Kopp’s, Josh is amazed at the sheer amount of people lined up to eat frozen custard on a fifty degree afternoon. The line spills out the door and snakes around the building, and the bus driver has to drop them all off before finding somewhere else to park.

As they make their way toward the building, Josh hears a voice in the crowd yell, “Donna!”

He and Donna turn at the same moment to find two people waving at them, a tall redheaded man and a woman who looks eerily like Donna, just a couple of inches shorter and several decades older. A wide grin spreads across Donna’s face, and she grabs him by the biceps and tugs him over toward them.

Her parents are both holding a small cup of custard in each hand, maneuvering carefully so as not to get any in Donna’s hair as they take turns embracing her.

“Mom, Dad, this is Josh,” Donna says, gesturing toward him. Josh briefly wonders how often he’s come up in conversations with her parents, and in what context. “Josh, these are my parents, Lucia and Sean.”

Josh moves to extend a hand for them to shake, but pauses when he realizes all four of theirs are full.

Mrs. Moss laughs. “Here, honey. We got you cookie dough,” she says, handing one of the cups to Donna. Then she turns to him. “Josh, we weren’t sure what you’d want, so we went with strawberry.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to…”

“It’s no trouble,” Lucia replies with a cheerful tone that brooks no argument. He recognizes it from his own mother, knows it to mean shut up and accept the damn custard.

So he does, taking the cup from her hand. Mr. Moss hands one of his cups to his wife, which frees up a hand for Josh to shake. Josh takes it, stifling a groan when Donna’s dad grips his hand hard enough that he swears he can hear bones cracking.

Mrs. Moss’s handshake is much gentler, more friendly than intimidating. She immediately begins asking Josh and Donna questions about the campaign, how the Governor’s speech went over this morning. Donna has told him that her parents were confused and understandably concerned when she dropped everything to drive to New Hampshire — twice — but they seem supportive now.

Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, Donna nudges him with her elbow. “Josh, eat your custard.” Then she turns to her parents, informing them, “Josh has never had frozen custard before.”

“Never?” Mrs. Moss asks, Mr. Moss’s stoic mask briefly cracking to reveal an equally incredulous expression.

He shrugs, shooting Donna the dirtiest look he can muster without appearing rude. “It’s not very popular in Connecticut, I guess, but Donna’s been talking it up so much that I’m expecting big things.”

“Big things you won’t get to experience unless you actually try it,” Donna points out.

Josh rolls his eyes before bringing the spoon up to his mouth. He lets the custard melt on his tongue, very aware of the three sets of eyes on him.

“That is…” he trails off, knowing his next words are going to create fodder for Donna to tease him with for weeks, “better than ice cream.”

The Mosses all laugh, and Josh feels a strange sense of relief. They talk for a few more minutes before he sees some of the other staffers emerge from the building with their custard and he figures he better go do his job.

“I should get over there, make sure everything’s going okay,” he says reluctantly. “It was great to meet you both.”

Donna’s parents bid him farewell, her mom a little more enthusiastically than her dad, and he leaves them to have some time alone together. He turns back for a second to see Lucia smoothing a hand over Donna’s hair, Sean laughing at whatever his daughter is saying. It’s unexpectedly soft and creates an inexplicable ache in his chest.

Josh catches up with the other staffers, standing back as reporters snap photos of Jed and Abbey sharing a banana split. Everything goes off without a hitch, or at least as smoothly as things can ever go for them. CJ does slop her chocolate shake down the front of her blouse, but that hardly even ranks on the list of mishaps that have occurred over the past couple of months.

After about thirty minutes, they’re loading back onto the bus. Donna catches up to them, ostensibly having said goodbye to her parents. When they return to their seat, Josh notices that she seems subdued, her eyes a little red.

“Hey,” he says quietly, not wanting anyone to overhear. ”You okay?

An odd expression passes over her face before she softens. “Yeah, I just…it’s still hard to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” he replies, because he is. He wants her to be happy on the campaign, will do whatever it takes to keep her from leaving it again.

“Don’t be,” she says; he can tell she means it. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

When they’re on the road two hours later, Donna falling asleep on his shoulder before they’ve even hit the Illinois border, Josh can’t help but agree.

September 2002

“Donna? Hey Donna, wake up.”

Donna stirs to the sensation of someone gently jostling her head. It takes her a moment to remember where she is, but the sound of a familiar voice coupled with a distinctive stagnant odor helps her get her bearings. She’s on a plane with Josh, and apparently she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder sometime during the two hour flight. That’s not exactly surprising considering they worked an entire ten hour day before boarding the latest possible flight from Reagan to Dane County Regional Airport. It is a little surprising that Josh’s arm is curled around her shoulder, but she’s too emotionally exhausted to question it.

Earlier in the week, Donna had gone to Josh’s office to tell him she would need a couple day off of work because her dad had called her the previous night to inform her that her Aunt Colleen had lost her battle to breast cancer and the funeral would be that weekend. When she delivered the news, she had expected Josh to be sympathetic. He hates to see her upset, has ever since the time on the first campaign when she had accidentally stapled her thumb and fought back tears while CJ dug it out with a tweezer. She’d expected — maybe hoped — for a hug and a few kind words that she could replay in her head as she lies awake

What she hadn’t expected was the odd look that contorted his face, like he had a sudden idea. She also hadn’t expected him to stop by her desk later that afternoon and tell her he was coming with her.

“Coming with me where?” she’d asked, her brain too foggy to follow a nonsequitur.

“To Madison,” he replied slowly. “With you. For the funeral.”

That didn’t help to clear up her confusion. “You have to work.”

“I talked to Leo,” he replied with a shrug. “He doesn’t need me this weekend.”

“We’re two months out from the election and Leo doesn’t need you?”

“Beats me.”

Unfortunately, Josh has a terrible poker face so Donna had known immediately that whatever conversation took place between him and Leo had been about more than taking the weekend off. She wanted to call him on it, interrogate him a little to see if he’ll fold and tell her exactly what the hell is going on here, but then his face had softened, his eyes so warm that she thought she might lose it if she spoke.

“Look,” he said gently, “it’s a tough trip to make by yourself, so I’d like to come with you. Unless you don’t want me to?”

For fear of bursting into tears in the middle of the bullpen, all she could do was nod. “I’m not sure if you’re up to the Full Moss Experience,” she joked, voice thick.

An unreadable expression passed over his face — an anomaly at this point in their friendship — before he smiled and replied, “Bring it on.”

So now they’re on a plane to Madison, and as put off as Donna is by this whole ordeal, she has to admit Josh’s presence is keeping her afloat in the unrelenting tide of grief.

“We’re about to land,” he informs her quietly.

“Okay,” she murmurs, pushing herself to sit up and shifting until a series of wet popping noises ripple down her spine. She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands as the plane begins its descent.

Dane County is a small airport, just thirteen gates, so it doesn’t take them long to find Donna’s brother Liam. He’s waiting for them by the baggage claim and the moment Donna sees him she speeds up, breaking away from Josh until she’s walking directly into her oldest brother’s outstretched arms. Liam squeezes her tightly, murmuring that he loves her into the top of her head.

Donna and Liam break apart when Josh catches up to them. Josh has never met any of her siblings, so he extends his hand to her brother.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he says sincerely as they shake hands.

Liam looks Josh up and down, his face skeptical for a moment until it shifts into something a bit more affable. “It was good of you to come.”

Donna notes that this is more approval that Liam ever showed Mark, then immediately chides herself for comparing her best friend to her ex-boyfriend.

Liam leads them out of the airport and to his car. Josh offers to sit in the backseat so Donna can ride shotgun. The drive is quiet, Liam and Josh making polite small talk while she leans her head against the window and watches the city lights whiz past.

When Liam drops them off at Donna’s parents’ condo before returning her to his own home for the night, Donna lets herself and Josh inside with the key she still keeps with her even though she hasn’t lived with her parents since she was eighteen. Everyone in the condo is likely already sleeping, but Donna’s mom left the entryway light on for them. Donna leads Josh inside, quietly instructing him to leave his shoes by the door. They move carefully through the living room so as not to wake anyone up, making a beeline for her bedroom.

Once inside, Josh sets both of their bags down on the bed. He tries to inconspicuously look around the room, and Donna wonders what he’s thinking. She feels a little embarrassed, suddenly, the bedspread and posters and knicknacks all the same as when she was seventeen.

“It’s very…pink,” Josh says, and she can tell he’s trying not to laugh at her.

“Shut up,” she grumbles, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t get me started on the Mets shrine in your room.” She’d seen his childhood bedroom once before his mother moved, on a campaign stop in Hartford that had taken a detour to Westport.

“It wasn’t a shrine! It was a —”

“Collection of artifacts assembled for the purpose of veneration?” she supplies.

Josh does laugh then, the sound of it filling the room, and Donna is suddenly so glad he’s here with her that she could burst.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower,” she tells him as she begins digging through her bag. “You’ll be okay here?”

He assures her that he will be, so she pulls out her pajamas and heads to the bathroom across the hall, leaving Josh to his own devices.

When she returns, Josh is sitting on the edge of her bed and flipping through a book. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a copy of Persuasion, the one she’d read so many times in high school that the cover is practically dangling from the spine and the pages are yellowed and torn.

“Doing some reading?” she asks, making him startle a bit; he must not have heard her come in.

He grins sheepishly, as if he’s been caught doing something illicit. “Just trying to get a look into the mind of high school Donna.”

“A frightening place to be,” she says with a good-natured grimace. “Shower’s free.”

Josh doesn’t take as long in the shower as she did, so all she does in the time he’s gone is lay out her dress for tomorrow. He comes into the room in a t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair damp. It’s not as if she’s never seen him like that before, but that was in hotel rooms and his apartment, never her childhood bedroom. It feels intimate, maybe too intimate for a boss and assistant. Before she can spiral too far she shakes her head, reminding herself that this is Josh, her best friend, and that the normal rules of boss and assistant have long since stopped applying to them.

Josh glances around the room again, his eyes lingering on the bed. “Should I take the couch, or…?”

Donna’s mouth nearly drops open, because in the chaos of this hastily planned trip, she's completely forgotten to consider where Josh would sleep. It’s a four bedroom condo, but her uncle and cousins are here from Sheboygan, so there are no free beds.

“Oh, I uh…I’m sorry,” she stammers, feeling suddenly guilty for dragging him here.

“Don’t be,” he reassures quickly. “Sleeping arrangements are the last thing you need to worry about this weekend. I can take the couch.”

“No you can’t, that thing’s ancient. Your back will be out of whack for a week.”

“I’m not worried about it.”

“I am,” she insists. “We can share the bed, it’s big enough.”

Donna’s not exactly sure what possessed her to say that, but she’s not taking it back now that the words are out. She really doesn’t want Josh to hurt himself by sleeping on the couch, and it’s not like they haven’t shared a bed dozens of times before. This is only one night, so what harm could it do?

“Are you sure…”

“Just get in the damn bed,” she says with a grin.

Josh does as he’s told, and soon they’re both lying in her bed in the dark. She’s hyper aware of him on his back beside her, aware that if she reached out her hand her fingers would brush against his. This bed is smaller than the one in his apartment, so they’re a little closer than they’re used to. She’s not sure how long she lies there, listening to the ticking of the clock on her wall, willing herself to fall asleep but having absolutely no success.

After a few more uncomfortable minutes, Josh murmurs, “Can’t sleep?”

“Not really, no.”

“Me neither,” he admits. “Too excited about being in Donnatella Moss’s bedroom.”

She does reach out a hand then, only it’s to poke him in the ribs. He doesn’t protest, just chuckles as he shifts into a more comfortable position, unintentionally moving closer to her.

“I will say I’m feeling a little misled.” His tone is teasing and Donna can already feel her muscles begin to relax. “Because this is nowhere near a farm.”

She laughs, rolling her eyes even though he can’t see her. “Okay, that’s enough talking for tonight. Go to sleep.”

“Alright, alright,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “Goodnight, Donna. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight, Josh.”

She rolls onto her side, even closer to him. It’s comforting, being so near him, reminds her of all the nights they spent tangled up in his bed when he was recovering from the shooting, soothing one another with their proximity. She decides she deserves that kind of comfort tonight, so instead of feeling guilty or ashamed, she lets the sound of Josh’s steady breathing quiet her mind until she’s drifting off.

When she wakes up in the morning, Donna feels a warm weight on her waist. It takes her a moment to process that it’s Josh’s arm, slung across her in his sleep. Her heart begins to pound as she contemplates what her next move should be. It was all fine and good to let herself indulge in his presence last night, but now they’re in the stark light of day and she knows they shouldn’t be doing this. She doesn’t want to make things awkward for Josh, so she carefully rolls out from under him and pretends to be asleep until the alarm goes off.

“You sleep okay? Josh asks, half asleep still and voice gravelly, and Donna knows he has no knowledge of what just happened.

They roll out of bed to avoid any awkward not-pillow talk, Donna sending Josh to the bathroom to change into his suit while she gets ready for the day in her bedroom.

When she emerges, she finds Josh eating cereal at the kitchen table beside her uncle Pat.

“You’re Donna’s boyfriend?” she hears Pat ask when she’s in earshot.

Donna can see the tips of Josh’s ears turn red. “No, just a friend.”

Pat looks thoroughly perplexed by this, but doesn’t ask any further questions, distracted by Donna’s arrival in the kitchen. Soon her parents emerge too, pulling Donna into tight hugs and fussing over her and thanking Josh for coming along.

The rest of the morning passes in a bit of blur as everyone scrambles to get ready and make it out the door in time. Donna’s punctuality is not an inherited trait, but rather one developed in protest of her family’s chronic lateness. Today the chaos is oddly comforting, a reminder that some things never change.

The funeral itself is uneventful, a long Catholic affair. Donna spaces out a bit during the homily, wishes that Josh were sitting with her and her family instead of by himself a few rows back. His presence might comfort her a little more than being sandwiched between her older sister, Teresa, who is trying and failing to hold back her noisy tears and her sister-in-law, Carly, who is struggling to pacify her increasingly crabby baby. She does at least manage to catch Josh’s eye as she makes her way back to her seat after receiving communion and he gives her a reassuring smile that bolsters her for the remainder of the service.

Afterward, everyone convenes in the church basement for a luncheon. Donna finds Josh immediately, snagging him by the elbow to save him from yet another relative who’s waiting to bombard him with questions.

“Hey,” he says as she yanks him toward the table where her parents and siblings are starting to settle. “How are you holding up?”

“Better now that it’s over,” she says honestly, though what she really means is better now that he’s beside her. “I hate funerals.”

A shadow passes over his face, and suddenly Donna realizes that he’s sacrificing more than a couple days of work to be here with her. “Yeah, me too.”

Before she can say anything else, they arrive at the table, greeted by her family. Josh knows her parents, of course, and he met Teresa when she visited Donna in DC shortly after the inauguration. Donna introduces him to her middle brother, Brian, along with all of her siblings’ partners. They take to him as Liam had, suspicious at first but warming quickly.

“Donna says you’re from Connecticut,” Brian says, and Donna winces as she waits to hear what comes out of her brother’s mouth next. “You a Patriots fan?”

“I’m not much for football,” Josh admits, “but I guess you can call me a Patriots fan by default.”

Brian eyes him suspiciously. “You like the Bears?”

“Absolutely not.”

A grin spreads across Brian’s face and Donna feels a strange sense of relief. “Then you and I”ll get along just fine,” he says, clapping Josh on the back. Josh glances over at her, his expression part confused and part pleased.

After a couple of minutes, their table is dismissed to go through the buffet line. It’s a classic church potluck, and her aunt Colleen had been one of the more popular teachers at Midvale Elementary, so there’s a large spread.

As they make their way through the line, Josh mutters, “Donna?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know what half these foods are.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, glancing over at him. “They’re normal foods.”

“In the Midwest, maybe,” he says, trying to keep his voice down. He jerks his chin toward one of the bowls on the long banquet table. “But I’ve never seen that in my life.”

“It’s snicker salad,” she informs him.

“That is not a salad,” he argues, his eyes comically wide. “There’s chocolate in it.”

She laughs. “In Wisconsin it is. Take some, you’ll like it.”

Josh looks skeptical, but takes a small scoop anyway. She guides him through the rest of the line, then leads him back to the table. Josh is quiet while they eat, though not uncomfortably so. Donna knows her family can be rowdy, even at funerals, but Josh seems to be curiously absorbing their interactions rather than being put off by them. After he’s eaten the rest of the food on his plate, Donna watches him poke at the snicker salad with a spoon.

“Are those apples?” he asks under his breath.

“Just eat it,” she murmurs back.

“That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“But do you like it?”

Josh only shrugs, dimples deepening as he tries not to give her the satisfaction of smiling, and Donna decides that she doesn’t care what conversation transpired between him and Leo, only cares that he’s here now.

March 2006

The thing is, they weren’t even supposed to stop in Wisconsin.

They were supposed to be driving from Chicago to Minneapolis. It’s an easy trip, a little over six hours and a straight shot through the state of Wisconsin. They’d left Chicago after the Congressman’s speaking engagement ended around five in the evening, their goal to arrive in Minneapolis just in time to sleep for the night. The Wisconsin primary isn’t until next month, so they hadn’t planned a campaign stop in between Illinois and Minnesota.

The universe, it seems, has a different plan, dispatching a freak snowstorm around the time they hit Wisconsin Dells. Josh doesn’t notice at first, burying himself in numbers reports to distract himself from the road signs that indicated they were speeding past Madison, trying not to think about the last time he was in Wisconsin. Eventually he hears the other staffers murmuring about whether or not they’re going to have to pull off the interstate and his head snaps up to see that the snow is really coming down, the wind howling and whipping it into near whiteout conditions.

Josh scrubs a hand across his face, thinking that this is the last thing they need after what has already been a very long day, and stands up from his seat to make his way up the aisle so he can talk to the Congressman.

“What do we do here?” Matt asks when Josh drops into the seat beside him.

“We gotta power through if we can. I mean it’s, what,” Josh pauses to glance at his watch, “two more hours? If we have to stop for the night we’ll be scrambling to make it to the convention center on time.”

They’re sitting close enough to the bus driver that he can hear their conversation, and he looks at them through the rearview mirror and says, “If you wanna keep going tonight you’re gonna have to drive this thing yourself. I’m pulling over.”

There’s not much arguing with that, so they exit the interstate near Eau Claire. They only have to drive a couple miles before happening on a Holiday Inn with an illuminated vacancy sign. Once they pull into the parking lot, Ronna runs inside to ensure they have enough rooms for everyone. She jogs into the building, coming out a few moments later and flashing them a thumbs up. That’s all the invitation the rest of the campaign staff needs to file off the bus and into the hotel.

Luckily, not many people are dying to experience the attractions of Eau Claire, Wisconsin on a random Wednesday night in March, so there are more than enough rooms for the staff. Josh is one of the last to get his key, and though he hears other staffers talking about meeting up in the lounge to play cards, he goes straight up to his room.

It only takes him two swipes of the keycard to get into his room, which is good because fighting with a door might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for tonight. He doesn’t want to be in this hotel, doesn’t want to be in Wisconsin at all. Maybe it’s childish to feel like an entire state has been ruined for him, but it has, and that seems to be something he’ll just have to live with.

In an attempt to stop his wallowing, Josh goes into the bathroom, turning on the hot water before stripping off his outer layer. When he goes to grab for a towel, however, he finds that by some fluke they’ve forgotten to give him any. He briefly considers saying screw it, too mentally exhausted to schlep all the way down to the lobby, but in the end he’s so desperate to wash the funk of a long bus ride off of him that he grabs his key and heads down the hall and to the elevator.

It’s after eleven o’clock at this point, so he doesn’t expect to see anyone else in the lobby aside from the person working the desk.

He certainly doesn’t expect to see Donna, rummaging through her purse with snow melting in her hair and her cheeks a raw pink from the wind.

It’s funny — though not in a way that actually makes him laugh — that Donna used to be the face he looked for in a crowded room. Now, in this empty hotel lobby, she’s the last person he wants to see.

Just as he’s deciding how to handle this situation, Donna pulls her wallet from her bag and lifts her head, her eyes finding him immediately.

“Hi,” he says, the word tumbling out before his brain has time to catch up.

He watches a series of emotions flit across her face until she schools it back to neutral. “Hi.”

“Waylaid by the storm?”

She nods. “We left Minneapolis a couple hours ago.”

“Ah,” he says. And then, for some reason, he tells her, “We’re moving in opposite directions.”

She opens her mouth to speak but seems to think better of it, her lips closing to form a tight smile that used to be reserved for rowdy interns and antagonistic congressmen, never him.

It was never supposed to be for him.

He glances down for a moment, noticing the way she’s awkwardly shifting her weight, favoring her left leg as a grimace contorts her face.

“Leg bothering you?” he asks before he can stop himself. Even now, he can’t stand to see her in pain.

“It’s fine,” she says, too quickly. “The temperature change…”

Josh nods understandingly, knows that he’s have more than a few aches of his own by morning. “You should get some ice on it.”

She snorts. “Might as well go outside and stick it in the snowbank.”

“Who would’ve thought we’d get stranded by a blizzard in March?”

“It’s Wisconsin.” Though her face is still guarded, her eyes crinkle in a way that makes Josh’s shoulders loosen slightly. “What did you expect?”

He puffs air out of his nose in what is almost a laugh. “Maybe something resembling civilization?”

“You should know better than that by now.”

“Yeah,” he says, searching her face. “I guess I should.”

He considers asking her to come up to his hotel room, like they would’ve done a million years ago. Back then they would’ve sat together on his bed, eating junk food from the vending machine and pretending to go over polling reports when in reality they were going on tangent after tangent until suddenly it was one in the morning and they were discussing their favorite elementary school teachers.

But that was then and this is now, so he doesn’t say anything. He stares at her for a beat longer than is socially appropriate, something that used to be part of their everyday communication but now is just awkward.

“I should go, try to get some sleep I guess,” she says after a moment. “I will say I’m not complaining about sleeping in a bed instead of a bus.”

“You’ve never had trouble sleeping on a bus before,” he points out.

“Different campaign,” she tells him, her eye contact suddenly so intense it takes everything in him not to look away. “Different people.”

Josh once again finds himself at a loss for what to say. He wants to tell her that he can’t sleep on campaign buses anymore either, not with so many strangers around, wants to remind her that this problem wouldn’t exist if she were on this campaign with him like she’s supposed to be, wants to yell at her for leaving him until his voice goes hoarse. Instead, he nods stiffly.

Donna’s searching his face now, her expression softer than when they first began. “It’s good to see you,” she says with a smile that comes a little bit closer to looking like his Donna but does nothing to lessen the ache in his heart.

“Yeah,” he replies, his voice coming out quieter than he expected. “You too.”

She takes her suitcase and heads toward the elevator, looking back over her shoulder once before the doors open and she steps inside.

Josh lets out a long, slow exhale, willing his stomach to untwist itself. After going to the front desk to get his towel, he heads up to his room, standing under the scalding spray of the shower until his skin is an angry red. He comes out of the bathroom and puts on the same pajamas he’d worn the night before, crawls into bed, and doesn’t sleep.

December 2006

Donna wakes slowly, warm and still sleepy as she snuggles further into the blankets. She squints over Josh’s shoulder to look at the digital clock on the nightstand, seeing it’s just a few minutes before seven. If it were any other morning they’d be up already, maybe not quite out the door yet if they were slow getting out of bed, but certainly dressed and ready for the day. Luckily, this isn’t any other morning; It’s Christmas morning, and they’ve got nowhere to be, so she’s content to watch him sleep a while longer.

She has to crane her neck a bit to see him properly because they’re half on top of each other, squeezed together in her childhood bed. It’s the same bed they’d shared the last time they were in Madison together, though this time there’s no reason for any pretense of physical distance between them.

Shifting carefully so as not to wake Josh, she pushes herself up onto an elbow to look at him sprawled on his stomach besider her. His head is turned toward her and she smiles at how the ever-present lines on his face are smoothed in sleep. While he has been doing a much better job of relaxing in the weeks since their whirlwind trip to Hawaii, decades-worth of built up stress doesn’t dissipate overnight. They still have a long way to go in learning to care for themselves, the both of them, but she’s happy with the start they’ve made together.

As she watches him, Josh grunts softly in his sleep, a noise so vulnerable it makes Donna’s heart clench, and she can’t help but touch him then. She reaches out a hand, tracing her fingers gently along his spine. HIs eyelids flutter at the contact, though he’s not quite awake yet. The mattress sinks a bit more as he melts further into it. She lets him wake up slowly like that, her hand stroking his back over his t-shirt.

When she slides her fingers up into Josh’s hair, his eyes slowly open. He looks at her for a moment, expression warm with unguarded affection.

“Hi,” he murmurs. His voice is gravelly in a way that gives Donna half a mind to roll him onto his back and climb on top of him.

She doesn’t, though, at least not yet, instead combing her fingers through his hair until he grunts again. “Good morning,” she says. “Merry Christmas.”

“A very merry Christmas,” he agrees, and then he’s snaking his arms around her, rolling and taking her with him until he’s on his back and she’s draped across his chest.

Donna can’t help the little squeak that escapes her at the unexpected movement, but she quickly recovers by ducking her head to pepper kisses along the line of his clavicle. He’s got a hand up her shirt and they lie like that for a while, kissing and touching, until both of their chests are heaving and Josh’s other hand starts toying with the waistband of her pajama pants. She’s just pulled his bottom lip into her mouth, nipping at it gently, when there’s a sudden barrage of knocking at the bedroom door and they fly apart.

“Aunt Donna! Uncle Josh! Wake up! It’s time for presents!” Donna instantly recognizes the voice as belonging to ten-year-old Gabby, her sister Teresa’s middle child.

She turns her head so she’s not yelling directly in Josh’s ear before calling, “Coming!”

That seems to satisfy Gabby, who leaves with one final knock on the door.

“That’s quite a wakeup call,” Josh remarks.

Donna grimaces, hoping he isn’t contemplating making a break for the airport. “You said you wanted the Full Moss Experience.”

“I did.” He reaches up a hand to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking the delicate skin beneath her left eye. “I do.”

The act is so tender, so completely domestic, that Donna feels her eyes suddenly welling up. There are a million things she wants to say, but none of them would do justice to the soft, unbridled affection unfurling through her chest, so instead she settles for, “I love you.”

“I love you,” Josh replies with a grin. He gently pats her thigh so she’ll roll off of him. “And as much as I’d like to continue this, we better get out there. I heard a rumor that it’s time to open presents.”

Donna laughs and they reluctantly climb out from under the warm covers and start getting dressed in more family-appropriate clothes.

“Pajamas okay?”Josh asks, pausing before pulling a sweatshirt over his head.

She nods. “Everyone’ll be rolling out of bed.”

They make their way to the living room, where most of her family is already waiting. It’s a tight squeeze to fit four adult children and their families all together in the condo that always felt a little too small for them growing up, but they manage to make it work. As they greet everyone, Donna nudges Josh to sit on the couch beside Liam, while she settles on the floor between his legs, her backs against the couch and her shoulders bracketed by his knees. He stiffens for a fraction of a second, still a little cagey about PDA in front of her parents, but he relaxes when she gently squeezes his ankle.

“You two sleep okay?” Teresa asks from her spot in one of the armchairs across from the couch. There’s a glint in her eyes that Donna recognizes from their childhood, a barely disguised attempt to rile her baby sister up.

“I slept great,” Josh interjects, his tone genuine. “We don’t get to sleep in much these days so it was nice.”

That seems to mollify Teresa, maybe even impress her. “Sorry about my little alarm clock,” she says with a sheepish grin

“No big deal,” Josh assures her. “I’d be excited too if I were a kid on Christmas morning.”

Donna braces herself for the interrogation that’s sure to follow, the when are you two going to settle down and have kids talk, but it never comes. Her sister seems satisfied enough with Josh’s answer, and the rest of her family is too distracted by the excitement of Christmad to jump in.

In the thirty hours they’ve been in Madison, Donna has been blown away by how well Josh is handling the Full Moss Experience. Her family is big and loud and their treatment of newcomers often borders on hazing. She’d been worried about subjecting Josh to that so early in their relationship, afraid that this thing between them is too delicate to stand up to that kind of assault, but Josh has amazed her by taking it all in stride. He answers their prying questions, responds affably to their teasing, pokes fun at himself in a way that gets them all laughing. Her nieces and nephews — who had greeted him as Uncle Josh! the moment he walked through the front door — are obsessed with him, and he seems to genuinely enjoy them too. She can’t help but think about how right it feels, that maybe he was made to fit here with her.

And it seems that she’s not the only person that thinks so. As her older nieces and nephews set to work on distributing presents, her youngest niece Quin climbs onto the couch next to Josh and molds herself into his side.

“Help?” the three-year-old asks him, jutting her lip out in a way that looks eerily familiar to Donna.

Josh lets out an incredulous little chuckle. Donna knows how much her nieces and nephews' affinity toward him has surprised him, how much it means to him. “You want me to help you open presents?”

Quin nods enthusiastically, and Josh looks to Donna’s brother Brian, who also nods. Donna shifts so she can watch the two of them work, her knees pressed in Josh’s leg and her head leaned against the side of the couch. As Josh gently lifts the edges of the tape up so that Quinn can rip the wrapping paper open, Donna gets a glimpse into her future, one where Josh holds a different blonde baby in his lap, or maybe one with dark curly hair. She happens to glance over at her mother, who is watching her from across the living room with a knowing smile, but she doesn’t feel embarrassed; she spent so many years pretending not to love Josh, won’t be embarrassed to love him openly now.

When all of Quin’s gifts have been opened and she’s thoroughly entranced with her new ballerina doll, Josh opens the single package addressed to him. It’s a dark blue sweater from Donna’s parents; Donna had helped her mom pick it out over the phone last week, and it’s as much a gift for her as it is for him because she can’t wait to see him in it. She watches a pleased grin spread across Josh’s face, dimples popping out, as he thanks her parents for thinking of him, and she knows with complete certainty that she will spend every Christmas with this man for the rest of their lives.

April 2010

Josh enters Donna’s uncle’s house through the patio door, carefully discarding his shoes before walking on the hardwood floor. He’s only been in this house once since Donna’s Uncle Al moved out to Waunakee last year, so he’s not completely sure where he’s going. He does, however, know exactly who he’s looking for.

After searching around the ground level to no avail, he makes his way up the stairs. There are fewer rooms on the second floor, and he locates a bathroom and master bedroom before seeing that the door at the end of the hallway is cracked slightly open. He walks toward it, warm anticipation bubbling in his stomach.

Pushing the door open just a little further, he uncovers a sight that will likely never fail to knock him breathless. Donna is sitting in an armchair tucked into the corner of the guest room, cradling Nora with one arm, the left side of her floral wrap dress pulled down so that the baby can nurse. Donna’s looking down at Nora while she eats, eyes soft in a way that Josh knows is reserved solely for him and their daughter.

He watches his girls quietly for a few seconds before gently rapping his knuckles against the doorframe. Donna lifts her head at the sound, a bright grin illmuniating her face when she realizes it’s him.

“Hi,” she says. “Egg hunt done already?”

He comes toward her, perching on the right arm of the chair. “It doesn’t take long with that many kids going at it. It was a bloodbath out there.”

“Any tears?”

“Just from me when Quin whacked me with her basket, but I think that was an accident,” he jokes. “How we doing up here?”

“She’s almost done.” Donna turns her attention back to Nora, smiling as the baby raises her little fist to gently beat against her mother’s chest.

“She must be faminshed from her exciting morning,” he says, hand coming to stroke Nora’s sparse blonde hair. “First Easters are no joke.”

He can say this because he only celebrated Easter for the first time last year, here in Wisconsin with Donna’s family. His excuse for that is being Jewish; Nora’s excuse is being a few months old.

“Probably exhausted, too,” Donna replies with a smirk. “The Full Moss Experience will do that to a person.”

Josh chuckles. He also has firsthand experience with that too, but he’d say the onboarding process is going much more smoothly for Nora than it had for him. Donna’s parents and sister are the only members of her family who have seen Nora, having flown out to DC when she was born and again the week between Christmas and New Years. As a result, their baby has been greeted like a celebrity, passed around from relative to relative, every smile and yawn fawned over. Josh feels pride bloom in chest whenever anyone comments on how pretty she is, or how happy; he might be a little biased, but he knows that his daughter is the best baby in the world and it’s nice to see other people realize it too.

He’s glad they decided to come to Wisconsin for Easter this year. They had gone back and forth on it, debating the practicality of traveling with a six-month-old. In the end they decided to make the trip because Donna’s grandmother is approaching her hundredth birthday and Donna hadn’t wanted to pass up the opportunity to see her if she didn’t have to. Luckily, Nora had done well on the flight; Josh joked that it was because of all the times Donna had flown on Air Force One while pregnant. Now that they’re here, he’s enjoying the process of introducing Nora to another branch of her extended family.

After another minute or two Nora finishes nursing. Donna shifts to start burping her, but Josh holds his hands out.

“Let me take her,” he says and Donna does with a smile, handing him the rag that was draped over her shoulder. He stands with Nora in his arms, holding her upright with her head on his shoulder, shifting from foot to foot as he pats her back.

Donna readjusts her bra and dress before relaxing back into the armchair. “Next year she’s gonna be out there hunting for eggs with the other kids,” she remarks.

That thought fills Josh with a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety that he’s come to learn is just part of being a parent. While on one hand he can’t wait to watch Nora run around the yard with her cousins, he already feels as if she’s growing too quickly for him to keep up with. Part of him wishes she would stay this little forever.

Still, he does his best to lean into the excitement. “She’s gonna kick ass at it,” he says at the exact moment that Nora lets out a good, solid burp.

“Damn right she is,” Donna replies. “The other kids aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em.”

Josh laughs, maneuvering Nora a bit so she can snuggle into him and hopefully start drifting off. A feeding normally knocks her right out, but with so much excitement today he’s not sure how easily she’ll go down. As a precaution he begins to pace, knowing how much she likes the movement.

Josh and Donna talk quietly while he attempts to put their baby to sleep, sharing observations they’ve gathered throughout the afternoon and cracking jokes they’ve been waiting to make until they were alone together. If there’s anything that helps Nora sleep better than being rocked, it's listening to the sound of her parents’ voices, so after about ten minutes she’s out.

“Is it bad that I don’t want to put her down?” he asks, nodding toward the collapsible crib Donna’s brother had lent them for the day.

Donna grins. “It's nice to have a built-in excuse to take a break from everyone.”

“That’s not what I was gonna say,” he says, though in truth he does agree. They both love Donna’s family, but he knows they can get on her nerves from time to time and he’s still trying to get used to attending such large family gatherings.

“I know it wasn’t, so I said it for you.” She shifts a bit so that he can squeeze into the chair with her. “Here,” she says, patting the spot she’s made beside her.

It’s a tight fit, but with Donna half in his lap they make it work. He shifts Nora from over his shoulder to lying in his arms, holding his breath when she starts to stir and letting out a long, slow exhale once she settles again. Donna stretches an arm across the back of the chair, bent at the elbow so she can play with the curl at the nape of Josh’s neck.

“I love your nieces and nephew, you know I do,” Josh says as they both stare down at their daughter, “but we’ve got the cutest kid here.”

“We make cute babies,” she agrees.

“Babies?” he asks, emphasizing the plural. Really he’s just teasing; they’ve already agreed on wanting at least two kids.

She shrugs as much as she can when they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder. “I’m just saying, we did so well on the first try, imagine what we could do on the second.”

His chest unexpectedly tightens with affection at the idea of another baby, another miniature Donna. Of course they’ll wait until Nora is a little older to fully engage in that conversation, but he finds himself almost giddy at the prospect.

“I don’t know that the world is ready for that level of cuteness,” he says.

“You’re right,” Donna agrees, and he can hear her smile. “We better let them acclimate to Nora a while longer before unleashing another of our earth-shatteringly adorable progeny on them.”

“Maybe we could practice a little in the meantime?” he hedges. “Y’know, just to make sure we’ve really perfected the process before the real deal.”

Donna laughs, turning her head to kiss his cheek, and Josh marvels, as he does about a hundred times a day, that this is his real life.

June 2012

“You look good.”

Donna looks into the mirror to see Josh leaning against the bathroom door frame. His eyes hungrily trace the curves of her body, accentuated by the dark blue dress she has on. She lets him enjoy ogling her as she continues threading her earring through its designated piercing. When she turns around, leaning back against the counter, Josh is on her in an instant, his arms splayed wide on her hips and his mouth easily finding the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“Do not leave a mark,” she chides even as she slides her hand up his back and into his hair. “I am not going to this thing with a hickey.”

By this thing, Donna means her twentieth high school reunion. She’d known it was coming by virtue of being able to do math, but had no intentions of attending. She can count on one hand how many people from high school she cares to keep in contact with, and she can call them up at any time. But about a month ago, her assistant Sophie had delivered her a message from Wendy Stevenson, the former president of Madison East high school’s class of 1992 who now seems to be heading the planning committee for their twentieth reunion. The message, it turned out, was a request for Donna not only to attend the reunion, but to be the keynote speaker.

Her knee jerk reaction had been to turn it down, unable to fathom why they would want her, but when she brought it up to Josh that evening, he’d had a different opinion.

“You’d be amazing at it,” he’d said while cutting up Nora’s chicken. “I mean don’t do it if you don’t want to, but you’re more than qualified and I’m sure your parents would love to have us in Madison for the weekend.”

Now that they’re here in Madison, he’s just as encouraging, though his energy seems to be focused in a different direction.

“C’mon Donna, you went to high school with these people,” he says, grinning as he strokes his hands up to her ribs. “I’m sure they’ve seen you with a hickey before.”

Donna retaliates by reaching a hand around to pinch his ass, hard, and he lets out a yelp that turns into a laugh as he pitches forward to rest his forehead against her exposed collarbone.

“Enough monkeying around, let’s get a move on,” she says as if she wasn’t the one who needed to finish getting ready before they could leave. “I’m not missing out on happy hour.”

They leave her parents’ condo in the car they rented, driving to a golf course near the edge of the city. Donna takes a deep, bolstering breath as they walk through the parking lot. It’s not as if high school was a completely miserable time for her, but she’s grown so much since then that she’s not looking forward to any attempts to shove her back into the box her classmates built for her two decades ago. Josh knows this, of course, and he’d probably sense it even if she hadn’t explicitly told him, so he offers her his hand before they step inside the building.

Wendy Stevenson is sitting at a table near the door, waiting to check them in. “Donna Moss! It’s so good to see you,” she gushes as she hands Donna and Josh a sheet of nametag stickers to write their names on.

“You too,” Donna replies as she fills out a name tag for Josh and sticks it on his button down shirt. It’s only half a lie; she and Wendy were always friendly in high school, though Wendy’s friendliness presented itself in a not completely genuine, if I let you borrow my highlighter then you’ll vote for me in the student council election kind of way.

Once Wendy has given Donna the logistic details for her speech, she and Josh are free to get a drink and mingle with Donna’s classmates. They’ve barely stepped away from the table when she hears a voice call her name.

“Is that Donna Moss?”

Donna spins around to see a tall man with dark blonde hair and familiar eyes. She recognizes him instantly, of course, and though they’d parted ways on pleasant terms he’s not exactly high on the list of people she was hoping to see.

“Moss-Lyman,” she corrects with a smile. “This is my husband, Josh.”

She doesn’t miss the excitement that zings through her upon introducing Josh as her husband, nor the way Josh’s dimples pop out when he hears her say it. They’ve been married for four years, but she’s starting to doubt that feeling will ever wear off.

However, Josh’s smile does dim by a fraction of a milliwatt when the man extends his hand to him and says, “Nice to meet you, I’m Fred Briggs.”

Josh takes Fred’s hand and shakes it. “It’s great to meet some of Donna’s classmates,” he replies in a pleasant tone honed by decades of professional politics, one that only Donna would recognize as fake.

“Donna and I were a little more than classmates, I'd say we were pretty good friends,” Fred replies with a good-natured smirk and Donna has to run a hand up Josh’s back to keep his hackles from going up.

Fred seems completely oblivious to this, as he did most things when Donna knew him, and immediately jumps into catching her up on what he’s been doing since high school. He’s just finished telling them about his landscaping business when Donna politely excuses herself and Josh under the guise of needing a drink.

“So, that was the infamous Freddie Briggs?” Josh murmurs as they walk toward the bar, his hand scorching the small of her back.

Donna tries not to grin. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

They’ve reached the line for the bar, so she turns to face him, keeping her voice down. “You do not need to be jealous of some guy I slept with over two decades ago.”

“I’m not jealous,” Josh argues, and she might almost believe him if it weren’t for the tips of his ears turning red. “And he’s not just some guy. He’s the first guy.”

“Yeah, well you’re the last guy,” she replies smugly, reaching out a hand to smooth down his collar. “You’re the one I come home to every night.”

Josh opens his mouth to respond, his cheeks reddening to match his ears, but then the bartender calls them forward to place their order.

Once they have their drinks in hand — riesling for Donna and a Spotted Cow for Josh — they make their way back into the crowd of people. They mingle with some of the other flute players from her row in the band, her chemistry lab partner, Jill Moore who had occupied the locker beside Donna's since they were in the seventh grade. All the while, she can feel Josh’s hand still warm on the small of her back, comforting rather than overbearing. Every so often she’ll glance over to him to see that he’s already looking at her, his face soft with intense, unfiltered pride.

It’s the same when they sit down to eat dinner with Sally Seidelman and her husband, along with a few other acquaintances; Josh uses every opportunity to talk up Donna’s career and share details about their daughters, deftly dodging questions about himself. She might as well be in high school, because everytime Josh purposely bumps his foot against hers beneath the table a swarm of butterflies takes flight in her stomach.

The meal passes a little too quickly for Donna’s liking, and soon Wendy is reading the introduction Donna’s assistant had emailed her and calling Donna to the stage. Josh plants a kiss on her cheek before she goes, murmuring, “knock ‘em dead,” so quietly that only she can hear him.

In the end, she doesn’t remember much about giving the speech. Though she’s gotten much more comfortable in public speaking throughout her career, she would much rather speak in front of the press than the people she went to high school with, so the adrenaline coursing through her veins has an almost dissociative effect. She doesn’t remember which of her jokes landed, if any of the more heartfelt lines seemed to strike a chord with her audience. What she does remember is looking up in the middle of her speech to see Josh in the crowd, watching intently with his chin propped up on one hand. They’d made eye contact for a moment, Josh grinning up at her with sparkling eyes, pride written all over his face. If nothing else, agreeing to be a part of this whole ordeal was worth it just to see him look at her like that.

They don’t stay long after the speech is done because Donna doesn’t have a desire to mingle any more than she already has. She tells anyone who asks that she and Josh have to get home to their kids. Her classmates, most of whom started having kids a good ten years before she did, all nod understandingly. They don’t need to know that the girls are perfectly content to spend the night with their grandparents and probably aren’t missing her and Josh at all.

Still, she takes Josh by the hand and leads him out into the pleasantly cool night air, breathing a sigh of relief as they walk through the parking lot.

“That was bizarre,” she says once they’re back in the car.

“That was hot.” Josh corrects. “And impressive and inspirational and a little intimidating.”

Donna rolls her eyes and Josh pauses, his hand hovering above the gear shift. “I’m serious,” he tells her.

He’s still wearing that same look from earlier, even though it’s just the two of them. It sends a zip of electricity up her spine. Josh puts the car in drive, his right hand immediately drifting to her knee.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” she says, picking up his hand and idly playing with his fingers. “That was somehow the most nerve-wracking speaking engagement I’ve ever done.”

“You were amazing.”

She grins, setting his hand back down higher up on her thigh. Not exactly subtle, but after all this time she doesn’t need to be; she can already see the desire flicker in his eyes, feels his fingers flex against the material of her dress.

“Do you think your parents already put the girls to bed?” he asks, his voice a little tight.

“This might make me a bad mom, but God, I hope so.”

October 2016

“C’mon old man, keep up.”

Josh huffs out a laugh, gathering up his energy so that he can jog a little faster to catch up to Donna. She’s about ten feet ahead of him, her blonde ponytail taunting him as it bounces. It only takes him a couple seconds to reach her, and when he does she grins, veering toward him so she can playfully knock his shoulder with hers.

The decision for him and Donna to run in the 5k fundraising event at St. Mary’s hospital in Madison had been twofold: Donna’s campaign manager, Sarah, thought it would be good publicity, and Donna — who had wanted healthcare reform to be a pillar of her platform from the moment she decided to enter the Congressional race for Wisconsin’s second district — wanted to show constituents she’s willing to put her money where her mouth is. Sarah had suggested that publicity would be even better if Josh ran in the 5k with her, but that’s not why he did it. No, he signed up because it was important to Donna, and because training for the race gave him an excuse to spend even more time with his wife.

“You been running without me?” he asks when he feels himself start to slip behind her again. Normally he and Donna run at almost the same pace, but today it seems she’s got an edge on him. “I swear you’re faster than you were on Friday.”

“A little race day adrenaline,” she muses, not sounding nearly as out of breath as he feels. “And maybe some anxiety about talking to the press afterward.”

“You’ll crush it, you always do,” he assures her.

And really, that’s not even a line he’s feeding her as her husband. Donna’s polling numbers have been great from the start and Josh knows exactly why. Through every press conference and campaign rally and stump speech, her genuine compassion for the people of Wisconsin and the issues they face has been evident. She’s the most likable person he knows, and she’s done an incredible job of showing that to constituents.

Donna smiles again, a blush creeping up her neck that Josh knows has little to do with the physical activity and everything to do with the praise he’s given her. They run quietly for a couple minutes and Josh allows himself to simply enjoy the moment. It’s a beautiful day, the October air just cool enough so they don’t overheat. Even he has to admit that Madison is pleasant this time of year, doesn’t mind the prospect of spending more time here.

When they catch sight of the finish line, they tacitly agree to speed up a bit, pushing themselves as hard as they can for the last quarter of a mile. Donna pushes the pace even faster, sticking her tongue out as a silent challenge. They’ve been casually jogging together for almost a decade, since they both decided to make an intentional effort to live healthier lives for themselves and for each other, and Josh has always loved the playful competitiveness it brings out in her.

After they cross the finish line at almost the exact same moment — Donna pulling ahead by just a couple millimeters in the end — Josh grabs Donna into a sweaty hug, both of them laughing as their chests heave from the exertion. He’s always heard that exercise is supposed to produce endorphins, but he thinks the contentment that settles over his body now is more easily attributed to running alongside Donna, her face beautifully flushed and the damp hair around her temples curling slightly, than any runner’s high.

Just to the right of the finish line stands Sarah and a couple of Donna’s other campaign staffers, taking photos for Donna’s campaign social media. Sarah flashes them a thumbs up, likely having caught the hug on camera.

They’re handed bottles of water and towels by some event volunteers, which they take gratefully. Donna chugs half her bottle before turning to Josh and asking, “How do I look?”

Josh gives her a quick once over, knowing that this is not Donna asking as his wife, but rather a candidate making sure that she’s presentable before talking to any reporters.

“You look good,” he tells her honestly. “Like you’re not afraid to work hard for the people of this district.”

Donna grins, leaning over to give him a peck on the cheek before they continue walking. As expected, there’s a small gaggle of press waiting for Donna’s arrival further down the line. She wasn’t the only candidate who ran the 5k today, so they anticipated that reporters would use this as an opportunity to ask about their stance on healthcare.

“Hey, everyone,” Donna greets, because of course all of these reporters are familiar to her at this point in the election season. “I’ve got time to answer a couple questions before I collapse.”

That gets a laugh from the press. Someone from the Wisconsin State Journal starts out by asking, “What made you sign up for today’s race?”

“It was really more of a question of ‘why wouldn’t I?’ St. Mary’s has served my family for decades — I saw a primary care physician here from the time I was in elementary school all the way up until I left Wisconsin in my twenties, my aunt received chemotherapy here, all of my nieces and nephews were born here. When I was in a car accident, this is where they took me. Running a couple miles felt like the least I could do to give back. And now that my husband and I have a handful of hospital stays between us, the importance of having well-funded facilities is more apparent to me than ever.”

The next question is about universal healthcare, and Donna answers perfectly, seamlessly pulling a few lines from her stump speech and making them sound as if she just thought of them on the spot. When a reporter from the Capital Times throws a curveball by asking about her views on maternity leave, she hits it out of the park.

Josh stands back, not wanting to appear as a campaign manager, just a supportive husband. It’s been a little strange to be involved in a campaign as a spouse rather than a leadership position, but he loves to see Donna in action. The confidence with which she speaks, the passion in every word, is incredibly sexy to him. A pleasant mix of affection and arousal spreads through his stomach as he watches her.

He’s so busy focusing on Donna that it takes him a second to register the voice saying “Mr. Lyman!” and realize that one of the reporters is trying to ask him a question.

It’s the reporter from the State Journal again. “Mr. Lyman, since we’re on the topic of parental leave, how do you feel about staying home with your kids while your wife runs for Congress?”

This is not a new line of questioning; they’ve heard it from reporters before, seen it plastered all over the internet. People can’t seem to fathom that Josh would want to step back from professional politics while his wife is eager to step forward, let alone that he would want to take an active role in raising his children. It makes his blood boil, both because it detracts from Donna’s campaign and because he wants his daughters to grow up in a world where women aren’t patronized for wanting big, important careers

“I don’t know if I would call teaching at Georgetown ‘staying home,’ but I’m thrilled to do everything I can to support my wife, and to spend more time with our daughters — that’s more important to me than any career,” he tells the reporter. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about my wife and her platform, so I’d prefer if you directed your questions toward her.”

The reporter looks appropriately chastised, and another quickly jumps in with another question for Donna about the healthcare reforms she’d push for if elected. That’s the last question Donna takes, and she thanks the press for their time before she and Josh walk away from them.

“I’m sorry,” Josh says as soon as they’re out of earshot. “I hate that they do that.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. Of course I’d rather that wasn’t a topic of interest in the campaign, but we know people are wondering about it and you gave a perfect answer.” She pauses, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “So perfect, in fact that I might have to reward you for it later.”

Just when Josh’s heart rate had returned to normal after the run, Donna’s words send it skyrocketing again. He’s not sure how she still has the power to do that to him after all this time, but he hopes it never stops.

Before his brain has time to form a coherent response, Donna leans to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth and says, “I’m gonna talk to Sarah for a minute and then I’ll catch up to you, okay?”

Josh has to bite his lip to keep himself from grinning like an idiot. He continues walking down the path until he finds Donna’s parents, who brought the girls down to greet them at the finish line. Bianca spots him first, the three-year-old immediately beginning to wiggle in Sean’s arms as she reaches out for Josh. He greets his in-laws before taking his youngest daughter from his father-in-law, grinning when she immediately wraps her arms around his neck.

Olivia lets go of Lucia’s hand so she can run over to Josh. “Did you win?”

“It’s not that kind of race, Liv,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter who’s the fastest, we were raising money to help people.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding sagely as if she understands, but Josh can practically see the wheels turning as her little mind tries to make sense of this new information.

Nora doesn’t seem nearly as interested in the race. “Can we go to Culver’s?” she asks, blinking up at him with big blue eyes that look exactly like Donna’s.

Olivia turns her brown puppy dog eyes on him too and Josh is certain that this is part of a premeditated plot between the two of them. “And get custard?”

“Custard?” he groans with exaggerated incredulousness that makes all three girls giggle. “It’s fall, it’s too cold for custard.”

“It’s never too cold for custard,” Olivia argues.

It’s then that Donna rejoins them, greeting her parents with a hug. “Spoken like a true Wisconsinite,” she says with a smirk.

“Yeah!” Nora exclaims, vindicated. “We’re Wisconsinites.”

Josh laughs, knowing with almost complete certainty that in a month Donna is going to win this election and their family will become part-time residents of Wisconsin. That thought fills him with warm, fizzing excitement, not so much the idea of living in a state he’s playfully mocked for decades but rather the promise of seeing the impact Donna will make on its people.

He grins at Donna before turning to Nora and replying, “Yeah, I guess we are.”

July 2022

“Are they out?” Josh asks, jerking his chin toward the rear view window. .

The back seat has been getting progressively quieter over the past fifteen minutes and sure enough, when Donna turns around to look, she finds that all three of their daughters are fast asleep. The girls have all inherited Donna’s penchant for being able to sleep anywhere, so it’s no surprise to see them all down for the count in a tangle of limbs and blankets and discarded books. Olivia is curled up in her seat, her legs tucked up to her chin and a pillow wedged between her head and the window. Bianca’s got her head on Nora’s shoulder, Nora’s head on top of Bianca’s. It’s an image Donna wishes she could hold onto forever, so she pulls out her phone to snap a picture before turning to face forward again.

“Like a light,” she confirms.

Josh grins, taking a hand off the wheel to reach for hers. Even after fourteen years of marriage it’s never enough for them just to be near one another; they always want more, want physical contact, want to be as close to one another as physically possible. It’s embarrassingly clingy, the way Donna’s constant desire to touch Josh has only increased over the years, or at least it would be if Josh didn’t feel the same way.

Luckily for her, he’s just as clingy as she is, a point he proves now by bringing their joined hands up to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the back of hers. It sends a trail of sparks down her spine and she squeezes his hand and tugs it to rest in her lap.

“We’ll have to wake them up soon,” Josh notes after a moment. “What do we have left, thirty minutes?”

Donna squints to read the mile marker ahead, making a mental note to schedule an optometrist appointment so she can get a stronger prescription. “A little longer,” she says.

They’re driving up to Bayfield for the Fourth of July week, staying at the cabin on the shore of Lake Superior that Donna’s dad and his siblings have owned for decades. They always try to get out of the city for the holiday, both because it’s nice to have some time away and because neither of them are particularly fond of the fireworks. For the past few years they’ve gone up to Manchester to spend time with the Bartlets, but no one claimed the cabin this year so they figured it might be nice to do something different.

“Are you sure you know how to get there?” Josh asks. They won’t have cell service once they get off the highway and out into the woods, so Donna will have to direct them.

She rolls her eyes. “Have I ever gotten us lost before?”

“Many, many times.”

“Name five.”

“Dallas in ‘98, Baltimore ‘99, Boston ‘02, Manhattan ‘07, Boston again in 2012, and last year at the Grand Canyon.”

“I did not get us lost at the Grand Canyon,” she argues, even though she absolutely did. “I took us on the scenic route.”

“Was it part of the scenic route when you led us past the same boulder three times because you ‘thought it looked familiar’?”

“Shut up,” she grumbles good naturedly, then decides to go for misdirection instead of reason. “I know Wisconsin like the back of my hand. The left one, to be specific.”

It’s a trick she’d learned in elementary school, that the back of her left hand could double as a map of Wisconsin if she bent her knuckles just the right way. She remembers going home that night, cornering each of her family members in turn and pointing to a spot in line with her middle finger, near her wrist, informing them this is where we live.

“Your left hand has never done me wrong before,” Josh replies with a smirk. That earns him a smack on the shoulder, and Donna knows he would yowl with indignance if it weren’t for the three children sleeping in the backseat.

“If I recall correctly, I was the one who got us out of Indiana,” she says, hoping it’ll win her this completely unserious argument.

“You did do that,” Josh replies, his voice suddenly quieter, fonder. He presses his lips together and Donna knows that he’s thinking of that endless day over two decades ago, the tension — both pleasant and unpleasant — that had built between them, the way it fizzled out when they fell asleep on each other on the plane ride home, both their frazzled nerves soothed by one another’s presence. Things were so different back then, but also so much the same in all the ways that matter most.

They settle into a comfortable quiet after that, listening to the playlist Donna helped the girls make before they left, titled road trip tunes. With Josh’s thumb stroking the back of her hand and the soft hum of the car’s air conditioning she could probably fall asleep herself, but since she’s in charge of navigation she does her best to stay awake by focusing on the road. It’s beautiful up here, the highway lined with tall trees growing so close together that it creates a canopy of green, their leaves swaying with the breeze blowing off the lake. Donna’s taken the drive from Madison to Bayfield more times than she can count, having come here at least once a year since before she can remember until she went to college, and this is the kind of view she missed most when she moved to DC. She wonders what it looks like through Josh’s eyes, through their daughter’s.

After a few more minutes, Donna begins to fidget in her seat, feeling the ache of being still for too long. They’ve been in the car for nearly five hours, having left Madison early this morning with the goal of getting to the cabin in the early afternoon. Though they’ve gone on frequent road trips since the girls were little, even more so now that they split their time between Madison and DC, Donna’s leg almost always protests the tight quarters, stiffening throughout the drive. She shifts a little more before propping her feet up on the dash in the hopes that the stretch will provide some relief to her muscles.

Josh is wearing sunglasses, but Donna can still see the look of disapproval that twists his face the moment her feet land on the dash. She knows he hates when she does this, for no other reason than that he thinks it’s unsafe. But instead of launching into a practiced argument they’ve had more times than she can count, she simply wiggles her toes at him — adorned with the bright red nail polish Olivia had insisted on using to paint them because it’s perfect for the Fourth of July, Mom — and watches his mouth quiver as he tries not to smile.

The air grows pleasantly thick between them, a warm tension forming that they both know they won’t have a chance to act on until much later, after the girls have all gone to bed. Still, they’re content to sit in it, letting the moment stretch on and on and on until a voice from the backseat murmurs, “Mom?”

Donna turns around to see that Nora is awake and rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand, though she hasn’t lifted her head from its resting place on top of Bianca’s.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Are we almost there?”

“A little bit longer,” Donna replies gently. “You can close your eyes again, we’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

As she watches Nora’s eyes drift closed, settling back to her seat, Donna thinks briefly of her younger self. People constantly tell her that her eldest daughter is a miniature version of her, so it’s easy to look at Nora and remember how exciting the drive up to Bayfield felt as a kid, the promise of entire week of swimming and bonfires and lawn games, and how she would inevitably fall asleep on the back half of the drive, always awoken by her parents when they arrived.

Even as a child, she imagined bringing her own family up to the cabin someday, showing her hypothetical husband and children one of her favorite places in the world. Now, as she takes another long moment to look at her daughters before sitting forward in her seat to find that Josh is smiling warmly as his eyes dart away from the road to look at her, his dimples popping out, she knows she never could have imagined the reality would feel this good.