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December 13, 2000
“I need to talk to him,” she says to Margaret quietly.
“You do?”
Donna nods. “It's about Josh.”
“Why? What did he do?”
“Nothing. It's not— I just need to talk to Leo,” she stammers.
“Right. I didn't mean to… It's just that he's kind of been yelling at people, hasn't he? Sorry.” Margaret shakes herself, then crosses the space between her desk and the door and knocks once. “Donna needs to talk to you.”
“Send her in,” Leo calls back.
Donna swallows, squares her shoulders, and opens the door.
“Leo.”
“Hey, kid.” He looks up at her with a soft smile. “What did you need?”
“Has Josh seemed weird to you?” she asks.
“Weird how?”
“I don't know. Just the stuff with the pilot. And the music in the lobby. He’s been…different.”
“He's certainly not in the Christmas spirit, if that's what you mean.”
Donna frowns. “It's not.”
“Okay.” Leo sits back in his chair, sighing. “It's Josh,” he says. “It's weird, but he gets like this sometimes, for one reason or another. You know that.”
She knows what he means. The monomaniacal tangents that Josh will sometimes get on that leave him distracted and sleeping in his office. It's why she’d refused to let him put a couch in there like everyone else. But this is more like not sleeping at all.
“Not like this,” she insists. “This is different, Leo.”
“It'll be fine. Keep an eye on him for me, would you, though?”
Donna holds his gaze for a long moment. Finally she just sighs. “Yeah.”
December 18, 2000
Donna sits in the visitor's chair in front of his desk, picking anxiously at a loose thread on her sleeve.
Leo watches her, waiting for her to speak. Her nail polish is chipped, her hair loose and wavy, and he wonders briefly if it isn't both of them that he should do something about.
“The musicians really bother him,” she says eventually. Her voice is quiet. "He yelled at them. And when I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, he said something about the siren being too loud. He said it to Toby too, the other day.”
“The siren?”
“I'm worried about the Congressional Christmas party,” she says.
“I think Yo-Yo Ma will be playing at a higher caliber than the folks in the lobby.” If he's trying for levity, Leo misses by several miles.
“It's the music.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“Are you going?”
“Yeah, but I'll maybe get to sit in the back. He gets me into things; I don't sit with him.”
“But you'll still be able to look out for him.”
“That's exactly what you said last week! And what am I supposed to do, exactly, when—”
“I can't make him do anything, Donna,” Leo interrupts gently.
“Yes, you can!” Donna shoots back. She sighs, digging her nails into her palm. “You can. I've been doing some research. There are organizations for this.”
“For what?”
“Post-traumatic stress.” She looks him in the eye as she says it, like a challenge. She's never been more sure of anything.
“It all makes sense: the music and the sirens. And the pilot. He won't shut up about the damn pilot.”
“About what?”
“That they have the same birthday.” She shrugs. “They do. I read the file, Leo. Don't tell me I shouldn't have. Do you really not see it? This guy, his plane caught fire and he ejected and he lived. He got shot down and he lived. And then he killed himself.
“He says he’s fine.”
“We cleared Robert Cano to fly an F-16.”
Leo sighs heavily. “What organizations did you find?” he concedes.
“The American Trauma Victims Association. That's it, that's who he should talk to. They specialize in this, exactly this. They worked with Rock Creek, the middle school with the bomb, natural disasters…”
“I'm familiar with ATVA.”
“They'll bring someone out. They're basically a government contractor, so they'll be discreet—and you know how Josh will be about that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you'll call them?”
“Okay, I'll look into it.”
“Promise me.”
“Donna, it's gonna be fine.”
December 21, 2000
It's not going to be fine. That was the only thought she had at the party, watching Josh’s shoulders as he flinched again and again. She could probably go her whole life without hearing the Suite in G Major ever again. And the worst part is that at first she'd thought it really would be fine.
When he walks into the bullpen with his hand wrapped in a roll of gauze, she can feel the dread sink in her stomach like a ball of solid lead.
“What'd you do to your hand?” she asks, curious with just a hint of concern. Perfectly innocent, not suspicious at all. She sets another file down on the desk, neatens the piles he's making from his backpack.
“I, uh… I cut it,” he says dumbly. “I broke a glass and I cut it.”
And Donna may be the worst liar anyone has ever known, but she can still catch one that's been made up on the spot. “How?” she prompts.
“I set the glass down and it broke.”
“Was it cracked? Already?”
“Must've been.”
“And the pieces went into your hand?”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head, as if to emphasize how unusual this was. But she knows every trick in the book to make a bad lie believable. It's exactly the kind of thing she would've done while explaining how she got a strangely shaped bruise on her wrist.
“Did you clean it yourself?” she asks. “You wrapped it like that?”
There’s an obvious answer here, but she wants to know what he'll tell her. Josh, who says he'd never lie to her.
“Yeah,” he agrees again.
“Let me look at it.”
“No, it's fine.”
“Sure. If it's fine, let me see how it looks.”
“It's not that bad. It's just a deep cut.”
“Well, you wrapped it pretty bad.” She reaches for his hand, turns his palm over.
“Donna.” He pulls his wrist out of her grasp.
“Did you clean it? ‘Cause there could've been little pieces of glass. And if it's that deep you're probably going to need stitches. Your palm isn't going to heal well; it'll pull open.”
“You know, I don't think dating a med student for half a decade makes you a medical professional,” he says sharply.
Donna looks up in surprise, meeting his eyes. She forces her face not to show the hurt as she looks into his. He breaks first, staring intently instead at a small point on the floor.
“You have senior staff in ten,” she says coolly. “I have to get this to Margaret.”
And then she turns and walks out of his office and right down to Leo’s, where, in Margaret’s absence, she walks right in and closes the door behind her.
“I already know about the party,” Leo says patiently without looking up. “I've got you and CJ and Toby and Sam all in here about it by now. I already called ATVA yesterday—after the thing with the President—and I already talked to him about it.”
“That's not what—”
“The guy’s coming this weekend. Saturday for all of you, and Sunday to sit with Josh. I know it's Christmas Eve, and all, but there wasn't another time. You don't need to be there on the day; but he wants to meet with everybody beforehand. If you could fly out in the evening we can make it work. I'll cover the difference if you need to change your flight”
“He cut his hand,” Donna blurts as soon as Leo pauses. He looks up. She doesn't know what the thing with the President is, but surely it can't be half as bad. “The palm of his right hand. He says he broke a glass, but I don't believe him.
“He won't let me look at it, but it looks deep. It's still bleeding. I can tell. And he cleaned it up himself and wrapped it, but you know how he is with blood. It's not wrapped well enough, and I'm worried that he didn't actually clean anything. That there's still glass or whatever in his hand. He needs stitches. It'll heal weird. But you can't get stitches after so long. There's a line. I forget how many hours.” She's just rambling now, and she knows it, but she can't stop. “He didn't break a glass. It's deep. It won't heal right.”
Leo’s gaze on her feels like a weight. “Why didn't he break a glass?” he asks.
Donna swallows hard. “I used to waitress. I've broken a lot of glasses. You set a glass down and it breaks, the shards might cut you, maybe, but they don't go straight into your palm. They don't slice.”
“He didn't let you look at it?”
“No. Look, I know. But the way he wrapped it, I don't think it's just a small cut. You'll see it.”
“Okay.”
“I don't know what he did,” she says and her voice breaks. “The thing with the President, the music in the lobby, the party last night… He told me once that Joanie’s favorite composers were Schubert and Bach. That she played constantly. She was a pianist and a cellist. The suite in G major…”
“She was very good,” Leo says softly. “Really very good.”
“Leo, I don't know what he's going to do.”
He stands and crosses the room. “The guy from ATVA is coming to talk to him on Christmas Eve,” he says, putting his hands on her shoulders. “We just have to make it until then. Alright? Can we do that?”
She nods.
“Good. If you're going home, you should still go. I'll make sure you meet with him Saturday morning.”
“No.”
“It's not your job. I'll handle it. It'll be fine.”
“I'll cancel my flight,” she says. “Let me be the last one to talk to him.”
“Donna.”
“I wasn't there, Leo. I get that I'll never understand that. But I'm the one that sees him every day. I know him.”
“You don't need to stay.”
“What if he needs something?”
What if he needs me?
“It's not your job.”
“I know.” She shrugs, swiping her fingers under her eyes. “You have senior staff soon.”
December 24, 2000
“It's just the one meeting today,” she says again and Josh scoffs.
“I have nothing else?”
“I told you not to get here until just before one and you show up at noon. That's not on me. I'm sure you can find something to do for less than half an hour.”
“Noon is before one. You made me come in on a holiday to talk to one guy.”
“I don't control his schedule.”
“You control mine.”
“This was Leo.”
“There’s nothing else?”
“Josh, it's Sunday. It's Christmas Eve. There is no one else in town. What do you want from me?”
He doesn't answer for a minute. “Why are you here?”
“I work here,” she answers without looking at him. “And you have a meeting. You have to sit with this guy.”
“No, you were going home for Christmas. I remember this because you said I absolutely could not give you your gift before the holiday. You should've left yesterday.”
“Something came up.”
“Me.”
“No,not just you. He wants to meet with everybody. I’ve been here a while already. Everybody else went yesterday.” She attempts a smile. “Now you can give me your gift on Christmas.”
“Leo told everybody?”
“I guess.” She shrugs. “The guy just had a few questions. He wanted to talk to everybody.”
“You should go.”
“I can't. I had to meet him, and then I told Leo I'd stick around in case he needed anything. Besides, do you have any idea how much it would cost to get on a plane today?” Donna shakes her head. “Have you changed the bandage on that?”
Josh looks down at his hand like he'd forgotten it was connected to his body. “Yeah.”
“Recently?”
“Yesterday.”
“Is it getting any better?”
“Yeah.” He flexes his fingers slightly. “Kind of.”
“Are you sure?”
He deflects this line of questioning with a dismissive little gesture. “Shouldn't you be getting this guy or something?”
“You can go by yourself, Josh.” Donna glances at her watch. “But he asked me to give him until one before I sent you. To make some notes or something, I guess. I don't know.”
“Great.”
“And I'll be here. When you're done, or just if, you know, you need anything.”
“It might be a while. I really don't know. And it's Christmas.”
“Still, I'll be around.”
Josh leaves his office on his own to walk back to the meeting room. And to look at him, you'd have no idea what he's walking into, she thinks. But when she comes back with the coffee, she finds Josh sitting there with that slightly vacant look in his eyes.
“Do you need anything?” she asks him softly, forgetting all the rules of being a good host and catering to your guests. Her hand rests on the slope of his shoulder, until she catches Stanley looking at it with interest and pulls it away.
Josh shakes his head. “I'm fine.”
“I'll be—”
“Around,” he finishes, still looking far away. “I know.”
“Okay.”
“I'm sorry.” Josh speaks without looking at her, focused instead on studying the palm of his hand. Too late for stitches, which is exactly what she was afraid of. But it's clean now, at least. Clean and bandaged properly and half-healed already. And he is alive. Which is all she will ever ask for again.
“I'm really sorry,” he says again, and she snaps out of it.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Donna glances over at the passenger side and his face, lit only by the glare of the streetlights and traffic signals. “Everything’s fine, Josh,” she smiles.
“It's not.”
“It will be.”
“I’ve been horrible, haven't I? To everybody. And to you. I dragged you to the emergency room on Christmas Eve.”
“No,” she corrects, “I dragged you to the emergency room on Christmas Eve.”
“Like that's better.”
“It's my holiday anyway, not yours, so I don't see why you care so much how I spend it. One year we went to the ER on Christmas because my brother fell down the stairs and cracked his head open. That was way worse—there was blood everywhere.”
“It's not your job to be doing this.”
“I know that. If it was my job to worry about you, I'd do it more.”
“I want you to be happy. It's Christmas.”
“I am. I'm not really that upset about not getting to hear my mom talk about how much she hates my job and wants a grandson for two straight days. I'm just also…worried about you.”
“I don't want you to be worried about me!”
“Too late! You were being worrying. I bothered Leo about it for two weeks, now it's over. It's fine.”
“So you're not worried now?”
Donna pauses, looking for a space in front of his apartment. “I didn't say that.”
“Don't hit anything with my car.”
“I'm less worried. I'm still gonna sleep on your couch.”
“You can't do that.”
“Well, I'm not leaving you alone on Christmas when you're suicidal.”
“I’m not suicidal, and I'm Jewish. You can't sleep on the couch ‘cause there's no glass in the window in my living room.”
“Perfect,” she gives him a little smile as she opens the car door. “I like it cold at night.”