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It’s on her seventh day in the hospital that it all starts to hit her.
Josh is next to her as he always is, even now that she's been moved--again--from the ICU to a different room, reading a newspaper that a nurse had brought for him. Her mom had gone back to her hotel to get a little bit of rest at Josh’s insistence, and Donna had been dozing in and out for most of the day.
She’s been awake for a while now, though, idly watching Josh read his paper. He’s reading the sports page; he’s kept anything related to world news far away from her–she’s never even caught him reading it when he thought she was sleeping. She knows he’s probably dying to be working, but he hasn’t even asked to turn on CNN, and she knows the fact that he hasn’t watched the news since she first woke up is for her, rather than him, and maybe that’s part of what pushes her over the edge, the thought that she’s keeping Josh from so many important things.
He’s been abnormally quiet the last few days, like he’s thinking very hard about something, and she knows it must be work-related, knows she must be keeping him from peace talks and who knows what else, but he hasn’t left her side, hasn’t tried to work or take too many phone calls, hasn’t even pulled out his laptop to hastily shove aside when she wakes up.
He hardly ever leaves her room, and when he does, it’s only when he thinks she must be sleeping. Even still, he never leaves her side–even to use the bathroom–without first pressing a gentle kiss to her temple, or to the top of her head, which is new for them, just since she got out of the second surgery, after the pulmonary embolism–they haven’t talked about it–and she doesn’t know what to make of it.
Aside from the few minutes he leaves to use the bathroom, or grab a sandwich to go from the cafeteria downstairs, or take a brief phone call, he’s just stayed right there, with her, quieter than usual, holding her hand most of the time, especially when he sleeps next to her, in his chair, at night. But all the while, he still looks as though he’s thinking very hard about something, though he never gives her any indication of what it might be.
He just sits there, quietly, holding her hand, occasionally looking her over, as if to make sure for himself that she’s still there, still okay.
He’s not holding her hand at the moment–he needs both of his to read the paper–and she wonders idly if that’s why she’s suddenly feeling so anxious, if she's just gotten so used to how openly affectionate Josh is here that she already doesn't know what to do without it.
This afternoon, her mind has been racing since she first woke up, and she doesn’t know how to broach the subject with him–how to ask him if he needs to go back to work without pushing him away, without making him think that she wants him to go, which she absolutely, unequivocally does not.
But she knows he probably wants to. He’s probably almost coming out of his skin, being here with her, instead of keeping the country running on the other side of the world.
He hasn’t said anything, but then, that’s just Josh–he doesn’t say anything–and she hates that, for once, she’s not really sure what he’s thinking. It’s stressing her out, how calm and quiet he’s been, how he’s just quietly there , whenever she needs him to be, because it isn’t sustainable. What’s going to happen when they get back to DC?
She’s not going to be able to go back to work for a long time after leaving the hospital, she knows that. She can barely keep herself awake for more than an hour or two at a time, and she’s still in too much pain to even really sit up on her own, let alone think about sitting in a wheelchair all day, or–God forbid–actually walking.
“Josh,” she says, and she hates that she can hear her voice almost crack as she says it, but she has to do this, she has to ask him what happens next, where they go from here.
Josh turns immediately. “Are you okay? Do you need me to get the nurse?”
She shakes her head, and then closes her eyes to hold back the tears that suddenly threaten when she sees the concern on his face, because it can’t last, how perfectly he’s cared for her here.
He starts to rise out of his chair. “Are you in pain? I can–I can call–.”
She shakes her head. “No, I–Josh, I–I need to know what’s going to happen.”
He looks confused, crumpling the corner of his newspaper in his fist. “You’re going to be fine, Donna, I promise. You’re going to be fine. Nothing’s going to happen like–-like before. The doctor said–.”
“No,” she says again, shaking her head as she cuts him off. “I mean, after this,” she says. “When I go home, I’m not–it’s not like I can just go back to work, I’m going to be recovering for…well, a long time.”
“Okay,” he says, and she realizes he’s still gripping the newspaper, his knuckles white, and he’s no longer quite looking at her, like he’s nervous about something, like maybe it’s intentional, the not looking her in the eye. “So I’ll move in for a little while, take care of you.”
She gasps, and then winces from the ache in her lungs. “Josh…it’s…it’s not going to be–I mean–.”
“It’s not going to be what?” He asks gently, and, oh, God, he’s putting the crumpled newspaper down completely this time, and he’s looking at her, and she’s in danger of starting to cry in earnest, full-blown sobs, right here, right in front of him.
“It’s not going to be, like, a quick little recovery,” she says. “I’ll be at home for six or eight weeks, probably, and even after that, I’ll probably still be in a wheelchair–.”
“So we’ll both take some time off work,” he says, shrugging a little, and he’s so earnest now that she thinks he can’t really understand what she’s saying, because this is Josh Lyman , and he just casually mentioned taking some time off work from his job as Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the United States , and what’s more, he seemed to mean it.
“Josh, I’m serious,” she says, and she needs him to get it, needs him to know that she’s not messing around, that this might be it, right here, that they’re talking about long-term leave for her, months of it, probably, let alone whatever nonsensical thing he’d just said about his role in it.
“Josh, even setting aside the–the work part of it,” she starts, not even sure she wants to entertain whatever he’d meant by the other part, the I’ll move in and take care of you part, even here, even with him looking at her like this. “It would be–it wouldn’t be easy, like you think. It would be terrible, honestly–.”
She pauses, and she’s trying to think how to articulate it, how to make him understand what they’re really talking about, because he doesn’t get it, he can’t get it, not if he’d just as soon take leave from the job he loves for her.
“It would be…messy,” she says, a moment later, “And I wouldn’t be able to walk or move much or even bathe myself, and you’d have to look at all these scars every day and help me clean them because I couldn’t do it all myself, and the doctor said I wouldn’t be able to do much but rest, mostly, and–.”
She paused, again, and waited for him to move away, to nod and agree, maybe, that his general queasiness towards all things medical would make him not a good fit for the role of caretaker, but he didn’t. He was just smiling at her, a dazed, gentle, soft sort of smile, like he couldn’t believe she was sitting in front of him and he got to look at her.
She had a sudden flashback to years prior, that same sort of look. You’re going to make fun of him. No, I’m not.
It’s strange that that memory comes to her now, the memory of telling Josh about her ex-boyfriend, who’d stopped for a beer on the way to the hospital–after she’d had a much less serious injury than this one–and here Josh is, looking at her with the same dazed wonder in his eyes as he’d worn when they’d talked about all of it, and he hadn’t hesitated for a moment, he’d just jumped on the first flight he could get.
Maybe it’s not so strange, to have the sudden flashback to his face on that night, after all. Maybe he’d remembered it, too.
Maybe that’s why he’d come.
Maybe that’s why he was looking at her like this.
It’s strange, too, but he’s looking at her with perfect clarity in his eyes, a departure from the last few days, when she could practically see the wheels turning in his mind.
No, now, he’s looking at her as though he’s finally puzzled it out, whatever’s been bugging him, and she can’t make sense of it.
“Donna,” he says softly, still looking at her. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
“Josh–,” she started weakly, because she couldn’t let him do this for her, not him.
“Donna,” he said again, and her name came out of his mouth so softly, so sweetly, with so much tenderness in his voice that it put a lump in her throat at the sound of it. “I’m saying, let it be terrible.”
“Josh, I–.”
“Let it be terrible,” he said again, more firmly this time. “Donna, I don’t care if your legs are covered in scars, or if I have to lift you out of bed and give you a sponge bath every day for the rest of our–for the rest of all time, okay?”
She smiled a little–in spite of herself–she couldn’t help it. His lips quirked, too, his dimples popping out as he looked at her.
They both seem to notice at the same time that he almost just said the rest of our lives , but he presses on, seemingly unconcerned that, in correcting that error, he in fact roped himself into an even bigger commitment than that.
“And I don’t even mean sponge baths in a sexy way,” he continues, grinning at her, his dimples etching themselves deeper in his cheeks, as a light blush rose on his face. “Although–y’know–it’s you, so it would be, probably, um, sexy, I mean.”
He takes a deep breath, still studying her, his gaze steadily fixed on hers. “My point is, I’ll do it, and I’ll do it with a smile on my face, and you’d do the same thing if it were me, and the way I know that is that you did do it, you did do it for me, four years ago, and even if you hadn’t, I’d still do it, because it’s you .”
He’s looking at her with such tenderness, such sincerity, and she thinks he must mean it, but he can’t really understand what he’s saying, and she loves him too much to let him do this without understanding it.
She thinks back to what she’d said to Amy, just a few months ago. He walks around all day, afraid someone he likes is going to die, and it’s going to be his fault.
She knows what this is, what it must be. It’s Josh’s misplaced guilt, the guilt he’s always had, as long as she’s known him and long before that, besides, since he was a little boy, even.
That must have been what was on his mind, these last several days. He’d been wondering how he could outrun that terrible, terrible guilt, how he could atone for a sin that was never his in the first place, and this must be how he’d decided to do it, by offering to take care of her, by trying to undo what–in his head–he must think he’d done, by sending her to Gaza.
No wonder he looked at peace when he’d first suggested this, he must think that this is what will absolve him. And she can’t let him do this out of a misplaced sense of guilt, out of a feeling that he owes her. She loves him too much for that; it would break her to have him that close to her, caring for her, and not get to have him in the way that she’s always wanted him, not have her love for him reciprocated the way that she wants it to be.
It was different when she was the one making the sacrifice, when she was the one caring for him after Rosslyn. But she won’t let him do this for her, and then go back to being his assistant. She can’t .
“Josh, this isn’t–I mean, if you feel guilty for sending me here, you don’t have to do this , it isn’t your fault–.”
He looks a little hurt. “This isn’t about that, Donna, I promise.”
He sighs, looking down at the ground. “I do feel guilty, you–I know you know me well enough to know that I do, but this has nothing to do with that.”
“Josh–.”
“Donna, I want to do this for you,” he says. “You’ve always, always taken care of me, and you deserve to let me take care of you for a change.” He pauses, scratching at the back of his neck. “I’ve already–I’ve already mentioned it to Leo, the other day when you were sleeping. He called and I told him that I might need to take some time for a while, if you were okay with it.”
“ Josh ,” she gasps.
He shakes his head. “I know it was presumptuous, and I’ve been trying to think of how to tell you, but I want to do this for you, Donna. I do. I want to do this because I–I love you, I always have, and I don’t care if it’s messy, I don’t care if it’s terrible, you can do your worst, Donnatella Moss, and I’ll welcome it, if you’re letting me be there for it.”
At some point in his speech, tears have formed in his eyes, and his mouth is hanging open just a little, as he looks at her, and his eyes have gone all soft again, and he is practically vibrating with nervousness; it’s radiating off of him. She squeezes his hand to try and still it, but she doesn’t know what to say, because Josh just admitted that he loves her.
He loves her.
When she doesn’t say anything right away, he swallows, and then says, softer than ever, “I mean, you gotta know I’ve been thinking about all of this, Donna, this whole time I’ve been sitting here with you, the whole time I was on the plane–this isn’t spur of the moment for me, I’m not making some promise I can’t follow through on. I’m…I think maybe I’m doing the opposite of that, actually, because I’ve loved you for a long time and I’m finally, finally following through.”
Her head is spinning, and for the first time in days, she doesn’t think it’s for medical reasons. Josh just told her that he loves her, and he wants to take care of her, and he’s willing to give up (at least for a while) the job he adores just to do it for her. Her Josh, which she’s just beginning to realize she might actually be allowed to say without immediately correcting herself in her own head.
“Are you…are you sure?” She asks. “I mean, they need you, Josh–Leo, and the President–especially now. You can’t walk away from that for me . You love what you do, I know you do.”
He nods. “I do love it. But that’s always, always had a lot to do with you. And I sat on a plane for nine hours, and then I sat in that hallway out there while you were in surgery, and I realized what I think I already knew–that there is nothing, nothing , in my life that’s more important to me than…than you. Not the job, none of it. And I know that’s a lot to take in, and I probably shouldn’t even be saying this, not with everything you’ve got going on–.”
He pauses, realizing that Donna has started to cry, and he starts to reach his free hand up to her face, to wipe the tear away, maybe, and then hesitates, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air. “Oh God, it was too much, wasn’t it?” He asks, looking absolutely devastated. “Donna, I’m sorry, I–.”
She shakes her head. “Come here,” she whispers, and she ignores the protest of her body as she reaches up for him, to pull him down to her with as much strength as she can muster.
When she’s pulled him down enough to embrace him, his head falling, as it always does, into the crook of her neck, she presses a soft kiss to his temple. “I love you too, you know,” she whispers into his ear. “Longer than you, I bet.”
He chuckles and looks up at her, with such open affection it makes her heart ache. “In the middle of confessing my love in a hospital room and she’s still one-upping me.”
“Are you really sure about this?” she asks quietly, because she just has to make sure, just one more time, before she does anything embarrassing, like kissing him until her heart monitors startle all the nurses.
“I mean it, Donnatella, do your worst,” he whispers. “It’s not going to scare me off.”
“It really isn’t going to be–I mean, it’s not going to be the typical start to a…you know, this .”
“Neither was hiring yourself,” he says fondly, his face so close to hers that their foreheads are practically touching, “and look where it got us.”
She smirks. “Josh, we’re in a hospital.”
He pulls back, just a little, his smile suddenly hesitant. “Yeah, okay.”
“Oh, come here,” she says, “you ridiculous man.”
And then he’s kissing her, so gently and softly, and she knows it’s because of her condition that he’s not kissing her more soundly, because his love for her is so evident in the movement of his lips against hers that she wonders how she ever doubted it.
He pulls away after only a few seconds, before her lungs can start to ache, and then brushes a kiss against the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, and then her cheek, before pulling back to look at her.
She grins at him, and she feels so happy that she almost forgets how much pain she’s in, almost forgets that she can’t just bound out of bed to throw her arms around him again.
He’s grinning back just as widely, just as ecstatic, almost triumphant, laced with affection, and she wonders again how she ever didn’t recognize this look in his eyes when she’s seen it before. It’s love, of course it is. And maybe it really always has been.
She smirks at him. “How long before you tell all the nurses that you’re drinking from the keg of glory?”
He shakes his head at her, still beaming. “You know what, Donnatella? I think this time I’m gonna bring you all the finest muffins and bagels in the land.”
She laughs. “Again, we’re in a hospital. Their finest isn’t going to be that fine.”
“The finest Jell-O, then, I’m adaptable.”
She squeezes his hand to pull him towards her again. “Maybe when I wake up?”
“I’ll be here,” he says, bringing his hand to his lips and brushing a light kiss across her knuckles.
“I know you will.”
And when she wakes up again, he still is.