"Toby!" Josh whined as they walked briskly through the hallways of the West Wing.

"I need you take the meeting tomorrow, Josh," Toby said definitively,not looking for any further argument.

Josh turned around, started walking backwards. "But I'm supposed to go away with Donna this weekend."

"Sorry."

"Why can't you take the meeting?"

"It's Huck and Molly's first birthday party."

"So?"

Toby stopped, looked at him. "Where are you and Donna supposed to be going?"

"Some B&B in Shenandoah."

"A B&B?"

Josh had the presence of mind to look embarrassed. "Yeah."

Toby grunted and started walking again. "Sorry, lover boy, but I'm not going to miss one of the biggest milestones in my kids' lives so you can have sex on a four-poster canopy bed with flowered sheets and a chenille comforter."

"I think the comforter's goose down, actually," Josh grumbled.

"I am so finished with this conversation," Toby said wearily.

*****

"So I heard about you and Donna," Amy said.

Josh had to lean in a little to hear her over the din of the reception. "Yeah," he said, steeling himself for her reaction.

"I think it's great, J."

"You do."

"Yes, I do."

"Am I imagining things, or are you being just a tad patronizing right now?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "I'm being sincere, Josh. You can choose to believe that or not. Look, I'm sure you and the Mrs. will be very happy together."

"We're not -- married, Amy. We're just..." He had no idea how to put it. "...you know...together. And stuff." He swallowed.

"That'll change soon enough. Girl like that? Believe me, there's an altar in your near future."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked, starting to get pissed.

"I shouldn't have to spell it out for you." Amy knocked back the rest of her champagne and wandered off, leaving behind a very confused ex-boyfriend.

****

"Donnatella!"

Donna paused in the hallway, waited for him to catch up. "Good afternoon, Mr. President."

"We don't see enough of you around here anymore. Are you here
to see Josh?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know, I don't think I ever got the chance to tell you how
pleased I am that you two crazy kids finally got it together."

Donna blushed, uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Thank you, sir."

The president slowed his steps, took Donna by the elbow. "Just remember," he said in a low voice, "he ever gives you any trouble, you come to me. I'll take care of it."

"Sir, I don't think --"

Bartlet speeded up again. "I have the entire armed forces at my disposal, Donna!" he boomed.

"Yes, sir."

"One word from me and Josh will be getting lessons on the correct way to treat a lady from the fine men of Delta Force."

"I appreciate that, sir," she called after him.

*****

"Donna, seriously, why don't you just go home?" Josh asked. "This could take a while."

Donna looked up from her magazine and gave him a look across the cluttered expanse of his desk. "If I go home, you'll forget to stop working, and the next thing I know it's three in the morning and you're climbing into bed and pawing at me."

"You like it when I paw at you," he said smugly.

"Generally speaking, yes I do. But I prefer said pawing to take place before I go to sleep, not when I'm already two hours into deep REM. So I'm going to sit here until you finish the thing, and then I'm going to make you go home and have sex with me at a reasonable hour."

"Insatiable woman," he grumbled.

"Insatiable and fond of sleep, yes."

*****

"Josh, I need the --" CJ barged into Josh's office, stopped short at the sight of him and Donna kissing. At the sound of CJ's voice, Donna pulled away from Josh and hopped off of his lap. The younger woman's face turned bright red and CJ suppressed a smile. "Am I interrupting something?" she asked innocently.

"Not at all," Josh said quickly. "Donna was just...updating me on some...stuff."

"I can see that," CJ said dryly. Donna snuck around her without saying a word and slinked out of the office.

CJ looked at Josh. "You guys have got to keep it together around here. What if I had been, I don't know, the majority leader?"

Josh cleared his throat. "I doubt the majority leader would barge into my office unannounced, which is more than I can say for some of my co-workers."

"Okay, for future reference, ducking the point? Not nearly as charming as you think it is."

"Thanks, CJ, but I believe that's only one woman's opinion," he said cockily.

"Are you trying to get me to hurt you?"

*****

"You should tell her how you feel, Charlie," Donna said. Her head was resting against Josh's shoulder and he kept smoothing her hair beneath his fingers. She was a little tipsy and warm and happy and felt very strongly that the rest of the world should be as happy as she was.

Charlie took another swallow of beer before answering. "The problem is I've already told her how I feel," he said. "It hasn't done me much good so far."

Beside her, Josh was humming under his breath along with the music, most likely thinking he should stay out of any discussion about "feelings" as much as possible. "You can't give up," she said fervently. "Don't you think you and Zoey are meant to be?"

Charlie gave her a baleful look. "Not everyone is meant to be, Donna. Not everyone can be like you and Steve Miller over there."

Josh broke off humming the chorus of "The Joker." "Huh?"

"Charlie thinks that you and I were meant to be," Donna informed him.

"I don't think we were meant to be so much as incapable of sustaining a relationship with anyone other than each other."

"Gee, Josh, you're so romantic, please stop, you're sweeping me off my feet," Donna said, deadpan.

Charlie finished off his beer. "Well, you two are just a world of help. I can feel all my problems being solved as we speak."

*****

Her dress was slightly off-the-shoulder and as a result he found himself captivated by the flawless expanse of ivory skin exposed to public view. As they danced he kept dipping his head so that his lips could brush her skin, and each time he did so she squeezed his hand tighter.

"Do you realize," she murmured, "that this is the first White House function I've attended as your date, and not as your assistant?"

"Obviously I realize it," Josh said. "Or have you not noticed all the touching and the kissing? Because if you haven't, I need to work on my technique."

"The touching and the kissing have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated," she assured him. "I'm just saying...I don't know what I'm saying." Her shoulders sagged slightly, and he stared at her muscles working beneath her skin. "I have a feeling this is a lot weirder for me than it is for you."

"Probably," he agreed. "I have had my share of beautiful dates at these events, after all." At the expression on her face, he gulped. "That's one of those kinds of things I'm not supposed to say in front of you anymore, right?" he asked faintly.

"You bet your ass."

*****

"No. Leo, you gotta tell him we're never going to get the votes that way." Josh shifted on the bed, various sections of the Sunday Post crinkling beneath him, and exhaled loudly into the phone.

Donna, seated next to him on the bed, had abandoned the movie reviews and moved on to the crossword. Occasionally she would shove the puzzle under his nose and gesture to a clue that had her stumped.

"Ho Chi Minh," he told her, hand over the receiver. "Yeah, Leo, I'm still here," he said quickly back into the phone. He tried to concentrate on what his boss was saying, but kept glancing at Donna's long, bare legs extending gracefully from an old faded pair of his boxers.

"Do you want me to come in?" he asked. Donna was suddenly very still beside him. He sighed in relief when Leo answered in the negative, and gave Donna a thumbs-up. She smiled, then shifted on the bed so that she was using his bare chest as a writing surface.

"What am I doing right now? I, uh..." Josh trailed off. "I'm just sitting here, alone. By myself. Watching CNN. Uh huh. Yeah. Okay." He hung up. "Leo says hi."

"That's what I thought."

"Subterfuge just isn't our strong point," Josh sighed. Donna pointed at the crossword again. "Balzac."

End.