Too Much Thinking
I'm a little shaky as I
wander out of Leo's office. My head
hurts, my back is killing me and I haven't eaten in God only knows how
long. I keep hearing those four words
over and over again in my head.
Because I Could Die.
Never before have I
thought of Hoynes in terms so blunt. I
push those thoughts aside and wonder if Donna's around. She's not at her desk as I walk by. Maybe she's in my office. Waiting to thank me, with
coffee...chocolate...herself draped across my desk.
Whoa, where did that come
from?
OK, let's be realistic,
I'm not getting any of those things. She
doesn't bring me coffee, she's curbed my sugar intake since I spazzed out on
Sprite, LemonHead candy and YooHoo a few weeks ago, and the third thing....let's
not even go there.
As is my luck she's not
in my office but there is a note from her telling me to meet her at "our
place".
Our place? It's one in
the morning, she shouldn't be at "our place" alone, at one in the
morning.
Now our place is within
walking distance of the White House but I am honestly exhausted and don't feel
like walking any further than I have to so I grab my backpack and head for my
car. I notice Donna's car is still in
the lot. Now she's making me nervous,
she shouldn't be out walking the streets of DC at one in the morning.
Ten minutes later I park
the car. I see Donna sitting on the
steps. She smiles and waves a little as
I get out and walk towards her. My eyes
wander up to glance at the marble likeness of Abraham Lincoln rising up behind
Donna.
As I get closer I notice
her smile fades a bit. I realize quickly
it is probably because I'm limping, I'm exhausted and, in general, I look like
crap.
She pats the spot next to
her and as I sit down she hands me a brown bag and a bottle of iced tea.
"What's this?"
"Well, I took a wild
guess and figured you hadn't eaten lately.
There's a ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips."
"Good guess,
thanks."
I take a bite of the
sandwich as Donna opens the iced tea, taking the first sip herself.
"So, I've been
thinking." she says as she looks straight ahead towards the Washington Monument.
"About what?"
"About how to thank
you for what you did." she says quietly as she continues to stare straight
ahead.
I'm about to come up with
some smart ass comment but something tells me now is not the time for that.
"You just did. Really, I was glad to do it. It was no big
deal."
"It was a big deal
Josh. You didn't have time to breathe
today and yet you went out of your way...for me."
"Donna, look at
me." I whisper as I tip her chin so I can look her in the eye. She's getting misty so I hand her a tissue
out of my pocket. I had a feeling I may
be needing some so I grabbed a handful on the way out of my office.
"I was happy to do
it. So what exactly did the President
do?"
"You don't
know?"
I shake my head and shrug
my shoulders. Donna breaks out in a big
grin as she proceeds to tell me, in great detail, about the phone call from the
Oval Office. By the time she's done
she's gone through 2 tissues and I am about to grab one for myself.
"And then he kissed
my forehead and we went back to work," she finishes with a big sniff.
I can't help but grin.
"Don't make fun of
me. You don't know what it's
like..."
"To be kissed on the
forehead by the President of the United States?
I most certainly do."
She looks at me
strangely.
"In the recovery
room, when I first woke up after the surgery," I explain.
"Oh" she says
quietly. Even now, almost two years
later we still have trouble talking about the shooting. It's something we would rather forget about
all together. But that'll obviously
never happen. And today is just one of
those days when it's on my mind more than usual for a number of reasons, the
pain in my back, the discussion in Leo's office about dying, the blood pressure
check I went to this morning.
"You ok? You seem a little quiet," she asks as
she holds out her hand for the bottle of tea.
I hesitate before I
answer, not really sure if I am ok.
"I guess. I was just thinking about the meeting we just
had. Something came up and it started me
thinking about...stuff."
"OK Mr. 760 Verbal,
what kind of stuff?" she teases as she nudges me a bit.
I'm not really sure what
I'm feeling, which is going to make it a little hard to put into words but I
guess I'll give it a shot.
"We had a discussion
about Hoynes and President Bartlet wrote this note explaining why he would
never replace Hoynes on the ticket. The
note read, because I could die. And it
just...I don't know, got me thinking about what kind of a legacy someone like
Bartlet will leave behind when he dies.
It's unbelievable how many lives he's touched, how many lives he's
changed. And then I think of me, if I
were to die tomorrow, what would I leave behind? My mother, a townhouse, a 6 year old car, my
job and....and you," My voice is
not much more than a whisper as I finish the sentence and lean over, putting my
head in my hands.
"Joshua, you'd leave
behind a much greater legacy than that.
And you know it."
"Yeah, I forgot,
I'll also be remembered as the guy who got shot by some racists with bad
aim."
"Joshua," she
says firmly as she yanks my chin up so she can look me in the eye. "You are so much more than that. What you do each and every day affects
millions of people. What is with you
tonight?" she asks, trying to sound annoyed but ending up sounding more
worried.
"I don't know. Just a long day, I guess. Seems like not much went right today. I got Sam annoyed with me, I keep thinking
about death and dying, my back is killing me, my head is pounding, my blood
pressure was high and I....I'm exhausted."
I hear Donna sigh as she
reaches out to rub my back for a minute.
I realize that it is rare that I actually admit to not feeling well.
"Let's go,"
Donna announces as she stands to pull me to my feet and steers me towards my
car, holding out her hands for the keys.
I hand them over wordlessly and slump into the passenger's seat.
The ride home is
thankfully quick. Not much traffic at this
time of the morning. Donna unlocks my
front door, pulls my backpack off my shoulder and points me towards the
bathroom.
"Take a hot shower,
I'll make some tea."
"Donna it's late,
just take my car and go home. You can
pick me up in the morning," I hear myself whine even though deep down I
don't want her to leave.
She shakes her head a
little and gives me her famous look that says; 'there's no way in hell I am
leaving you by yourself right now.'
"Fine. There's a pile of clean laundry on the bed if
you want to change out of your work clothes."
Twenty minutes later I
come out of the bathroom wearing my favorite blue pajamas that are two sizes
too big. Donna's standing in front of
the window, looking out. I flop down on
the couch and throw the quilt over me.
"Donna? You ok?" I ask when she doesn't move
from in front of the window.
"Yeah, just
thinking," she says quietly as she moves to sit down next to me.
"About what?" I
ask as I toss her the end of the quilt.
"What you were
saying before, about legacies and stuff like that."
"OK, that's it.
Look, we've done more than enough thinking for today. We're just depressing ourselves," I
tease as I reach for the mug of tea on the coffee table.
"You're right."
So we're quiet for a
while, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I can't speak for Donna but my
thoughts are pretty incoherent, which I suppose is normal considering I have
been up for 21 hours now.
I think about how the
people I love tend to die before their time, about how I am ten times more
comfortable sitting here in silence with my assistant than I would be sitting
here with my....well, Amy. I think about
how I don't even know what to call Amy.
Is she my girlfriend? Yeah, I
think the jury's still out on that one.
I think about how beautiful Donna looks curled up against the arm of the
couch, wearing my sweats. I stretch my
legs out trying to get comfortable, wincing from the pain in my back.
"Back bothering
you?"
I nod and stand up to try
and stretch. Bad idea, leaning over just
makes my head pound more. Donna reaches
out to grab me by the arm, guess I look like I'm about to fall over.
"You take
Advil? Where's your heating pad?"
she asks as she tosses the quilt off her legs and stands up.
"Yes, and I think in
the linen closet."
Ten minutes later I'm
settled down on my bed with the heating pad draped over my lower back. My eyes are closed but I can hear Donna
walking around the room, probably putting my dirty laundry in the hamper,
hanging up my suit and stuff like that.
Things she certainly doesn't need to be doing.
"Donna, sit for a
minute," I whisper in the direction of the closet.
I can tell she's
hesitating. And with good reason, I
suppose. I hear her cross the room and I
slide over a little to give her room to sit down.
"You need
anything?"
"No, I was just
thinking."
"Not again,"
she teases as she reaches over and runs her fingers through my hair. It's comforting and I hear myself sigh.
"Very funny."
"You wanna talk
about it?"
"Not really."
"OK. In that case, I'm just going to go crash on
the couch."
"Stay til I fall
asleep? Please?" God, I sound pathetic.
"Sure."
She pulls her feet up
onto the bed and settles down cross-legged next to me. She reaches over to
gently rub my shoulders, as I was hoping she would. I think about what I couldn't put into words,
about the feelings I shouldn't have for my assistant, but do anyway. About how, no matter what happens in the rest
of my life, she's always there. This
constant force trying to cheer me up. I
think about what an utter and complete sap I've become. But I'll blame that on the fact that I'm
overtired and in pain. Safer than
blaming it on the real reason. The
reason that just kissed my cheek, tucked me in and headed for the couch.
THE END
