Josh was alone, and had been for months.

He was surrounded by people, of course -- god forbid a moment go by on the campaign trail when he wasn't surrounded by hordes of needy directionless people -- but at the end of the day, he was alone in a way he hadn't been in a very long time. (Not in a not-getting-laid way -- it had been all too long a time for that, too, but that wasn't what was really bothering him, not deep down. Theoretically. Sort of.) It was more that his support system, a system he had taken for granted for years, now, had been pulled out from under him, and even though that was largely of his own choosing, it still left him unsteady and hollow.

And not all of it had been of his choosing, or so he told himself. He hadn't chosen for Donna to walk away from him, for one thing. In retrospect he was almost glad she had, since that...that desertion essentially had been the impetus for his approaching Santos about running -- but still: it left him hollow.

(He didn't have much of an appetite these days, either -- couldn't try to fill that gaping emotional maw with charred burgers and greasy fries. He was running out of holes on his belt.)

It all boiled down to the same conclusion: Josh was alone, and it sucked, and what was worse, he was starting to get used to it. Kind of.

So when he settled down to his customary dinner of late -- pastrami on rye, which he usually just nibbled at before discarding it half-eaten in the only-sporadically-emptied wastebasket underneath the rickety walnut desk on the far side of his motel room -- while seated on a cheaply outfitted bed and watching sports highlights on ESPN, he didn't think much about the pathetic overtones of his situation.

But then there was a knock at the door, and Josh found himself wishing it was someone, anyone, other than the same damn people he'd been talking to every day for months, the people who worked with him, but didn't really work with him, and that distinction was probably only clear in his head but wasn't that what really mattered?

He got up off the bed with an alacrity that surprised him, and threw open the door.

It was just Bram, standing at his door in a rumpled blue pinstriped shirt, and still managing to look more than a little like a supermodel. (Or so Josh assumed. It wasn't like he actually paid attention to male models or anything. And not because he was uncomfortable with his sexuality, either. Really.)

Josh tried to hide his disappointment. "What?" he said curtly.

"We got a call from Nightline wanting the Congressman to appear on Thursday night. Education reform."

"And they called us...now?" Josh double-checked his watch: 11:30 PM.

Bram cocked his head. "They called five hours ago, but the volunteer who was answering the phone at the time just got around to telling us about it now."

"Are we allowed to fire volunteers?" Josh wondered.

"That very question is being debated as we speak," Bram assured him. "There's not much we can do about it until morning, but I thought you'd want to know right away."

"Yeah," Josh said, passing a hand over his eyes. "Yeah, I'm glad you told me. Is the Congressman awake?"

Bram shrugged. "Maybe. But he's been behind closed doors with the missus for a little while now, so I don't know if I'd chance it."

"Right." Not for the first time Josh wished he had managed to hire someone specifically to deal with media appearances, but they just couldn't afford it at this point. "I'll work up some talking points tonight and we'll go over them with the Congressman in the morning."

"Sounds good," Bram said. "Night."

"Night," Josh mumbled, and closed the door. The smell of pastrami on rye made his stomach flip. He hurled the sandwich into the wastebasket and flopped back on the bed, his mind already racing with different semantic framings to spring on Koppel.

His cell phone rang, and he picked it up, figuring Bram had suddenly remembered yet another incredibly important detail about which no one had bothered to tell him. "Yeah." He muted the television.

"Josh?"

"Donna." His stomach flipped again, for entirely different reasons. "What...hi."

"It's not too late, is it?" she asked. Her voice in his ear was strange and familiar, tinged with uncertainty. (Which -- no one knew better than Donna what time he usually went to sleep. This overwrought politeness they were forced to exert around each other lately sapped him of his strength as surely as his grueling campaign schedule.)

"No," he said. "I was just doing some work."

"I talked to Sam today," she said.

"Trying to get him to come out for Russell?" Josh said, and instantly regretted it, especially when he was greeted by a frosty silence on the other end of the phone. "Uh...hello?"

"You're a real jerk sometimes, Josh Lyman," she said.

He cleared his throat. "It's part of my charm?" he tried.

He heard her breath release in a huff. "He called me, if you'd like to get that straight in your head," she said. "And we had a very interesting conversation about many different topics, only some of which had any relevance at all to the campaign."

He could hear her moving around on the other end, tried very hard not to imagine what she was wearing. "I'm very happy for you," he said. "Why are you telling me about it?"

"Because in the course of our aforementioned, largely apolitical conversation, he told me that today is your dad's birthday," she said.

"Oh." Oh. He'd forgotten. It was his father's birthday, and in the chaos of his life he had forgotten. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the headboard.

"And I know that you're probably spending your nights by yourself in your hotel room watching ESPN or something and so I thought maybe it would be nice if you heard from...you know, a, uh, friend." Donna's voice was nervous and rich at the same time, curling around his eardrum. He could see her parted lips in his mind's eye.

"Thanks," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. "I can't believe Sam remembered."

"He'll probably call you later -- knowing him he forgot about the time difference and he's out doing Pilates or tae-bo or whatever it is people do in Orange County when they get out of work."

"Tae-bo?"

"Whatever. You know what I'm saying."

"Yeah."

"So...are you okay?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah." He could almost smell a whiff of cigar, hear the brush of gabardine as his father shifted in his favorite creaky armchair. "I...you know, it's the weirdest thing, I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"That it's my dad's birthday."

"Oh. Well, you have been a little busy, Josh."

"I know, but -- yeah." He sniffed, ran a hand over his forehead.

"You're not going to beat yourself up about this now, are you?" she asked suspiciously.

"No," he lied. "Not at all. Like you said, I've been busy." He paused, searching again for words. Why was this so hard? "Thanks...thanks for calling."

"You're welcome." He could almost taste her hesitation, an electric, bitter tang. "Your dad would be proud of you, you know. Of what you're doing."

"I know," he said, his voice hoarse. He swallowed. "Listen, I gotta go, I have this interview to prepare for --"

"Okay," she said quickly. "Good night." Her voice went up at the end, as if she were asking a question.

"Night," he whispered, and cut the connection. He let his breath out slowly, took in another breath through his nose. Thought about calling his mom, then realized she'd already be in bed. "Perfect," he muttered. He let his head fall back against the headboard again, cell phone slipping from his hand.

The third campaign his father had missed. Josh wondered if this one would turn out half as well as the others had; if his dad would have been proud of him even if it didn't.

He knew the answer to that last one, of course. Knew his father.

(And knew, now, that he wasn’t quite as alone as he'd thought.)

He picked up the phone and called Sam.

End.

A/N #2: The title comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Friendship is a sheltering tree."