Work Text:
September 1998
“What do you mean you can braid hair?”
Donna looked up in confusion at Josh, who was standing in front of her in the hotel room with an eager look on his face.
“I mean, I can braid hair, Donna - regular braid, French braid, I can try a Dutch, but I make no promises.” Josh shrugged like he should be ashamed of his limited skills, while Donna’s mouth remained gaping open.
They were in Idaho - no wait Iowa, the states were all blending together at this point - for yet another campaign stop with the election just seven weeks away. Technically the room they were in was strictly Josh’s, but Donna had barely stepped foot in her own room since they arrived early this morning. There was too much work to get done and it was easier for her and Josh to be in the same place.
Truth be told, this was the case on most of their stops -- and if she often ended up crashing on the other bed in Josh’s room instead of going to her own, well it was all for the cause.
On this particular evening, Donna was complaining to Josh that she couldn’t braid her own hair very well. One of the meet-and-greets earlier in the day featured a little girl with adorable braids who tagged along with her parents. Donna had since talked Josh’s ear off about how she could do a half decent job braiding other people’s hair but never really got the hang of her own, and hadn’t really had anyone braid her hair nicely in years.
In fact, Dr. Freeride, as Josh called him, made it known that he didn’t like Donna with braids, so she had just stopped trying.
Which was how Donna arrived at the current moment - sitting on a hotel bed staring incredulously at Josh, who had already started poking around for a comb and hair tie.
“Josh, how do you know how to braid hair?” Donna asked, although the second the words left her mouth, she had an inkling of what his answer might be. And she was right.
“Joanie,” Josh said in the soft voice he reserved for when he was talking about his beloved big sister. Donna had only learned about Joanie a few months ago - she could tell it was no small deal that he had trusted her with it.
“She would go on and on about how if she had a sister this wouldn’t be necessary, but she was stuck with me and mom was hopeless, so she was forced to teach me,” Josh continued. “So, she did - and then when I got good at it, word spread to her friends and I’d have to do theirs too.”
Donna’s eyes softened, picturing a young Josh as the darling of Joanie’s entire friend group, patiently giving every little girl gorgeous braids. She suddenly had a vision, not of Josh as a child but as an adult, fingers moving swiftly but tenderly through the hair of a little girl with blonde hair and eyes a certain shade of blue.
She shook the image off. Ridiculous, she thought.
“Anyway,” Josh said, “Do you want me to braid your hair or not, because otherwise I can get back to the actually important work of, you know, electing a man to the presidency-”
“Yes,” Donna interrupted, rolling her eyes. “I would appreciate if you could braid my hair, thank you. A French braid would be great.”
“Excellent,” Josh beamed. He sat on the bed behind Donna and started gently gathering her hair and working it through with a comb. Neither of them said much of anything as he worked, enjoying a rare moment of silence between their constant banter.
Of course, the silence also had a drawback – without conversation there was nothing to distract Donna from how it felt to have Josh’s fingers combing through her hair, occasionally brushing against her neck. The two of them had always been very tactile, but this felt … intimate, and while the occasional touch was easier for Donna to mentally shake off, this prolonged contact made it much more difficult to hush the voices in her head that said her feelings for Josh were not exactly work appropriate. The voices that had gotten progressively louder ever since she was handed that badge back in Manchester.
Donna was thankful her back was to Josh, because she was pretty sure a blush was creeping up her pale skin. She figured it was time to finally say something to stop this from getting out of hand, but as she opened her mouth it was Josh who actually broke the spell first.
“All done!” Josh said, although his fingers were still touching her head, smoothing stray strands and making sure her hair was tucked behind her ears. Donna, on her part, hadn’t moved, honestly a little surprised at how much time had passed while she was lost in thought.
She reached back to feel the braid, and sure enough it seemed perfect. She turned around to smile at Josh, and absolutely did not dwell for a second on how close her face was to his.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and in return he gave her a slow smile, his eyes lingering on hers for a moment longer than would be considered normal. Donna filed it all away in her mental box of odd moments between the two of them, as she had done so many times before. The box stayed shut, and it stayed locked, and she continued to do her job.
September 2015
“Mommy! Mommy!” Nora Lyman ran down the hall into the living room, colliding with her mother’s legs at a speed that really shouldn’t be possible for her little 5-year-old legs to reach.
Donna looked down at her daughter from her spot on the couch and chuckled. “Slow down, sweetheart. What is it?”
“Will you braid my hair for school tomorrow?” Nora asked. “Shana always has her hair braided and it looks so pretty.” For Nora, “always” was the two weeks she had so far attended kindergarten, although she and her fellow classmate had become such fast friends you would have thought they had known each other for years.
Donna supposed this was why Nora was suddenly so insistent on braids, when up until now she resisted any attempt to contain her hair in any way – preferring to let it flow free.
“Actually,” she responded slowly, a smirk developing on her face, “Daddy is an even better braider than me.”
“He IS?” Nora exclaimed, her eyes going wide as she whipped her head around to look at her father, sitting in the armchair across the room grading papers.
“That’s right, peanut,” Josh held his arms out for his daughter, who promptly ran over and allowed herself to be lifted onto Josh’s lap. “I am the hair braiding champion. There are songs written about me, legends even, on how I can create such a masterpiece with simple –”
“Josh,” Donna interrupted, raising an eyebrow.
“Right,” Josh stopped himself, smiling at Nora. “Yes, I can braid hair. I’m actually very good at it – you know why? Your Auntie Joanie taught me.”
Nora beamed at that. She knew all about her Auntie Joanie, even sometimes talked to the picture displayed proudly on their mantle. It made Josh’s heart clench every time, but in the best way.
“So,” Josh asked, “How many braids do you want?”
“Two,” Nora said immediately. “Just like Shana.”
“Then two braids you will have,” Josh said, scooping up his daughter and ignoring her giggles as he held her over his shoulder. “But first, little missy, it is time for bed. Only good little girls who get a full night’s sleep get braids in the morning.”
“Okay,” Nora said, sounding a little disappointed that she couldn’t summon the next day to arrive immediately.
But she went down without protest, and the next morning the first words out of her mouth were reminding Josh of his very important job. True to his word, Josh crafted Nora’s wild blonde mane into two perfect French braids, topped off with little bows at the ends. And as she bounded up the school bus steps, Donna couldn’t help but think about that hotel room in 1998 when she first discovered Josh’s talent, and how unbelievably lucky she was to answer the phone at a certain messy desk at a campaign office in New Hampshire.