Assorted Ramblings...

Disclaimers: I own nothing, I’m making nothing… these wonderful characters were created by Aaron Sorkin and belong to Sorkin, Wells and NBC. I’m just taking them out for a spin and will return when I’ve finished with them.

Being anally retentive about that sort of thing, I proofed it myself, so any mistakes are mine!

Category: A sort of “pre-ep” for Noël. Stanley Keyworth told Josh that he’d met with his friends before their session. This is my version of his meeting with Donna.

Spoilers: Up to 2.10 Noël.

Rating: PG-13 (subject matter)

A/N: This came about because I wrote more material for the Noël Christmas scene in Keeping the Spirit than I ended up using, so I decided to turn it into a separate fic. I think I probably overloaded the fluff-o-meter with that one, so this might redress the balance a bit! If you've read that fic, you'll notice a little bit of recycling going on. Well, if it's good enough for Sorkin, it's good enough for the likes of me, right?


A/N 2: Thanks to coloneljack and zinke for the readthroughs and helpful comments.






Bleak Midwinter




Donna walked slowly towards the room to which Leo had directed her. Since he’d told her about the appointment yesterday, she’d been trying to work out what it was exactly that would be expected of her, but in reality, she’d been too preoccupied with worrying about Josh to give it a great deal of thought. Now she knew that there really was something wrong, that she hadn’t been imagining things, or acting like an over-protective mother-hen, all she could think about was that, a mere six months after he had almost died, life had thrown Josh yet another curveball.

Like he hadn’t had enough of those to contend with already.

All she really knew for sure at this point was that Josh clearly wasn’t well, that Leo had arranged for him to see a specialist - a Doctor Keyworth - and that the doctor wanted to talk to Josh’s friends and colleagues before he actually sat down with him.

Which was, of course, something about which Josh was far from pleased. Donna knew how much he would hate the fact that his friends were going to be discussing him at all, let alone with a with a total stranger - even as she hoped he would eventually be able to accept the need for it. She’d been on edge all morning, worried about what she would be asked, how she would respond - and how Josh would react when she got back. He would almost certainly poke and prod her for information about what had transpired – a thought that made her profoundly uncomfortable. It was bad enough that she couldn’t help feeling that by talking to the doctor in the first place she would somehow be committing a betrayal of Josh’s trust; she didn’t need to add to her already long list of concerns by having to worry about what he would say afterwards.

But given the way Josh had been behaving towards her recently, an interrogation after her meeting now seemed unlikely. In fact, she’d hardly seen or spoken to him at all over the last couple of days. He’d pretty much holed himself up in his office, coming out for meetings and the odd cup of coffee, and the few words they had exchanged had been stilted and completely work-related. Donna had even taken to leaving his messages on his desk rather than going through them with him, because she found herself at a complete loss as to what to say or how to act around him. In the almost three years she and Josh had known each other, she could honestly say that she’d never felt so adrift. His mood swings had become more and more pronounced, and where he had usually been a ready participant in the back-and-forth barrage of teasing that often passed for conversation with them, now he seemed to be only barely tolerating her. The exasperation he had shown her recently had been genuine – and when he’d spoken to her at all, it was as though he’d just… run out of funny. He didn’t snark her, he didn’t mock her; he was quiet and polite, but she could sense that he was barely keeping himself in check, that he was on edge all the time – even more than usual; she got the distinct impression that he was likely to explode at any minute and heaven help anyone who got caught in the blast.

Donna had been concerned about him for a while now, especially since that day he’d - expressed his displeasure at the noise levels in the bullpen - but she had told herself not to blow things out of proportion, that whatever was wrong, Josh would soon snap out of it, as was his way. He had probably had enough of people worrying about him and his state of health to last a lifetime and she certainly hadn’t wanted to start prying or fussing just because he was a little - stressed out. Knowing Josh as she did, that was something only guaranteed to make things worse. Besides, it wasn’t unusual for him to become somewhat frayed around the edges at times - she’d seen it often enough before. So she put it down to his being tired and cranky, and had been sure that he’d pull himself around like he always did.

Although now of course, she realized that she’d been deceiving herself.

Just six months earlier, Josh had been critically injured, his survival uncertain; and Donna couldn’t remember ever having been so scared. But he was a fighter. He’d fought and won; he’d pulled through and not a day had passed in the six months since that she hadn’t offered up a thank you for it – even on those days when he’d said something remarkably tactless, or kept her at the office until the early hours of the morning.

So although she’d noticed that he hadn’t seemed quite himself lately, she’d put it down to excess tiredness – or, rather, to unusually amplified levels of what she liked to call “Joshness”. With hindsight and brutal honesty though, she could admit to herself that she had never seen Josh quite like this before – and certainly not for such a prolonged period of time. It was clear to her now that she just hadn’t been ready to face the fact that there could be something really wrong, and she was furious with herself for having been so stupidly – and deliberately - blind.

But all that had changed a couple of days ago, on the morning after the Congressional Christmas party. Josh had arrived looking incredibly pale and drawn; his skin, usually pallid, looked almost gray, and there were bags under his eyes that she was sure hadn’t been there a couple of weeks before. He was unusually subdued and after saying a quiet “good morning” to her, had walked into his office and closed the door with a soft ‘click’, remaining there until he’d left for Senior Staff. When he’d returned, Donna had started to talk to him about the stack of messages she was about to hand over, when he’d just taken them absently from her hand and - without saying a word to her - had turned away and walked back into his office, closing the door quietly behind him once again.

Donna remembered standing there just looking at the closed hardwood door feeling as though she’d been struck – and it was only after Josh had left her that she had registered the fact that he had a bandage on his hand.

Unable to tear her eyes away from his door for a moment or two, her mind shifted into overdrive as she began to wonder what on earth he could have done.

She returned slowly to her desk, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything for the next hour or so – she was typing gobbledegook and having to correct herself every ten words, but try as she might she just couldn’t focus. Instead, she found herself thinking back over the past few weeks and months, recalling occasions when Josh had been behaving strangely and trying to figure out if there were any reasons for it that she could account for. And she was completely unable to stop herself from thinking about how he might have hurt himself. Obviously he’d injured his hand somehow, but… she didn’t think the dressing had been applied by a medical professional. So why – if he’d cut himself or had some sort of accident which had resulted in a wound that required a bandage – wouldn’t he have gotten it seen to properly?

She was so preoccupied with her thoughts, that she hadn’t noticed Josh coming out of his office; she was sure that she had a guilty look on her face when she’d spun around at the sound of his voice. He had handed her a stack of memos to type, but hadn’t looked at her once, his voice a flat monotone as he’d told her what he needed – and Donna had been so shocked at his expressionless face that she’d unthinkingly blurted out what had been uppermost in her mind – “What did you do to your hand?”

A brief frown had crossed his face as he’d looked down at his injury, almost as if he were seeing it for the first time – and then, still not looking at her, he’d just mumbled something about having cut it on a glass at home, turned away and walked out of the bullpen through the swing doors.

Donna had been sitting holding the stack of memos in her lap as she looked after him, her mind racing with suspicions and doubts that dogged her for the rest of the day.

And the next.

Finally, when she’d run through just about every worst-case scenario she could think of – severe stress, depression, breakdown - she’d screwed up her courage and pushed aside her concerns about what Josh would say and do when he found out – and had gone to speak to Leo.

But as it had turned out, Leo had had concerns of his own. He’d listened to her calmly, taken her fears seriously – and had then told her what had happened in the Oval Office a couple of days earlier. And also that he’d arranged for a doctor – a trauma specialist – to see Josh in a few days time. Donna had been relieved to discover that she wasn’t the only one who had noticed the increasing irrationality of Josh’s behavior; but her relief had been short-lived, replaced by a wholly different sort of anxiety as Leo explained that the specialist had requested to speak to Josh’s friends about their impressions and concerns before meeting with Josh himself.

So now, here she was. Making her way to a meeting room at the opposite end of the building to discuss her boss with a complete stranger. Despite his high profile and visibility within the administration, Josh was actually an incredibly private person. He rarely, if ever talked about himself or his own ambitions – everything he did or said was geared towards helping the President and he liked to keep it that way. Josh could be incredibly charming or a complete bastard, depending on what it was he wanted to accomplish, but Donna was one of the few people who knew what was really underneath all the bluster and bravado. That he was an incredibly caring man who poured everything that he was into everything that he did – yet who never thought that anything he did was enough.

She forced herself to keep walking. She just couldn’t shake off the thought that by doing this she was being disloyal to Josh, the idea that she might somehow be letting him down making her feel physically sick. She had to keep reminding herself that finding out what was wrong and helping him had to outweigh all other concerns; that it really was a case of doing this for his own good, no matter how pissed he might be in the short-term.

Arrived at the door, she took a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves, knocked and entered.

Sitting at the table was an attractive, dark-haired man, who she guessed was probably just a few years older than Josh. He stood and extended his hand.

“You’re… Donna Moss?”

She shook his hand and smiled briefly in greeting. “Yes.”

“Stanley Keyworth. Please,” he gestured to the chair opposite him, “sit.”

“This is my colleague, Kaytha Trask,” he said when she’d done so, indicating the young woman sitting unobtrusively in the corner of the room.

Donna nodded towards Ms Trask and turned her attention back to the doctor as he asked; “I hope you don’t mind if she takes notes?”

“No,” Donna said, wondering momentarily what would have happened if she had said she did mind. “It’s fine.”

She pulled her chair into the table and settled her hands in her lap, fighting the urge to bite her lip – it was a nervous habit and she really shouldn’t…

“Okay,” Doctor Keyworth rested his clasped hands on top of the folder in front of him. “You know why I’m here.”

Donna swallowed. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said, opening the folder. “So. How long have you been Josh’s assistant?”

“About three years. Since the campaign.”

“And you’re friends.”

“Yes.”

“Good friends?”

“Yes.”

“Mr McGarry tells me that you’ve raised some concerns with him about Josh’s recent behavior.”

Donna hesitated before replying, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. “Yes.”

There was an expectant pause. Then when Donna said nothing more, Doctor Keyworth prompted, “Could you tell me about them?”

I - ” Donna paused and licked her lips before she replied. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she smiled nervously. “It’s just… I don’t know you, and Josh – he places a great deal of trust in me and -”

The doctor leaned forward slightly and looked at her reassuringly.

“Donna. First of all, it’s Stanley. And second of all, nothing you say to me will leave this room. Leo McGarry called me here because he’s concerned about Josh and I’m here to help.” He shrugged and sat back. “That’s it.”

Donna paused a moment longer, trying to resolve the conflict raging inside her. She knew how much his job meant to Josh, and how his reputation could be seriously damaged if it turned out that there was something psychologically wrong with him. But if that really was the case, then he needed help, and he needed it now, before things had a chance to get any worse.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “Josh is… he’s not himself. He covers it well, and I don’t think most people have noticed, but he’s - different. I don’t think he’s sleeping well, if at all; he’s on edge all the time.” She allowed herself the tiniest of smiles at that. “I mean, Josh is pretty highly strung most of the time, but this is more than that.”

“In what way?”

“It’s hard to -” she frowned, searching for the right words. “Josh works harder than anyone I know, except maybe Leo – Mr McGarry - and the President. He’s volatile, he’s incredibly smart, he’s funny. But lately, it’s as though… I don’t know – he’s still all those things, but they’re “off” somehow. I can’t really explain it… you see, humor’s like – a defense mechanism for him. But it’s as though his timing’s off.”

Stanley nodded and jotted a note on the pad in front of him, the look on his face when he’d finished urging her to continue.

“And now he’s just … quiet.”

“Quiet?”

Donna smiled, wryly. “Believe me, there are times when all of us wish Josh would shut up more, but this… this is – it’s not him. He … doesn’t do quiet.”

Stanley nodded again - but said nothing and, finding herself suddenly uncomfortable with the ensuing silence, Donna felt compelled to keep talking.

“And a few weeks ago, he was …”

“What?”

Donna shook her head. “No. It’s nothing.”

“Donna?”

“Really, it’s not worth - ” she dropped her gaze to her lap, where her fingers were picking idly at imagined pieces of fluff on her skirt.

“Don’t you think you should let me be the judge of that?” Stanley said softly. “If I’m going to be able to help Josh, I need as much information as possible - even if you think it’s not important.” When Donna looked up, it was to find him regarding her intently. “So,” he began again. “Tell me what happened.”

Donna dropped her gaze and stared at the table. “Josh is - I said he’s volatile. He yells and hollers, but he’s one of those people who’s quick to blow up and quick to calm down. Despite what he says, he doesn’t hold grudges - well, not for himself anyway – and he’s never … mean.”

She reached for the glass of water in front of her and took a couple of sips.

“But a few weeks ago… God, this is so silly… I had a date after work, but Josh had a meeting and wanted me to come back. And he was … he said - ” she stopped suddenly and waved a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter what he said, the point is it was nasty and – he’s not like that.” She glanced up at Stanley before dropping her gaze back to her hands, now clasped tightly together in her lap. “Not to me,” she added softly.

“Okay.” Stanley pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “So tell me what prompted you to speak to Leo.”

Donna took another deep breath. “He cut his hand. Josh, I mean. He… he came in yesterday with a bandage on his hand.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“I – I tried to.”

“What did he say?”

“That he’d cut it on a glass at home.”

“But you didn’t believe him.”

“I – I’m not…” Donna was wrestling with her conscience, hating herself for what she was about to say. “No, I didn’t.”

“You think he lied,” Stanley said, flatly.

Donna looked up, her gaze flicking from Stanley’s face to the tabletop and back. “I know he did. Josh doesn’t …” she swallowed hard and licked her lips. “See, there are times when he can’t tell me things. It’s the way it has to be and I understand that and it’s fine. But - he doesn’t lie.”

“How do you think he did it?”

Donna stared at him, taken aback. She had her own ideas – but she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing by sharing what was, after all, a baseless supposition. “I – uh, I don’t really - ” she stammered, uncomfortably. “I’m just… sure he didn’t do what he said he did,” she finished, in a small voice.

There was a pause. “Okay.” Stanley scribbled something else on his pad, and then looked up at her again. “So that, and the fact that he’s not himself is what made you go to Leo?”

Donna paused. “Basically, yes.”

“Basically?”

“Well … I was thinking – I mean, since Leo told me you were coming and you wanted to speak to me, I’ve been thinking and trying to work out if there was anything that might have, I don’t know, upset Josh or pissed him off or…”

“And what did you come up with?”

“Well, he didn’t like the bagpipes that were playing in the foyer.”

Stanley’s expression changed to one of amused surprise.

“Bagpipes?”

Donna couldn’t help smiling, too. “Yes. For some reason, Toby – Toby Zeigler – had elected himself the spirit of Christmas and he was sort of auditioning musical acts for the foyer – you know, to have music playing when people were coming and going. And one of those was a group of pipers.”

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Stanley went on, deadpan. “But somehow I don’t think Josh is alone in not liking the sound of bagpipes. It’s… pretty horrible.”

Donna’s smile widened. “It is. But,” she continued, contemplatively, “he didn’t like the brass quintet either. Which is odd, because Josh likes music. He sometimes plays classical music when we’re working late, stuff I’ve never heard before, or that I’d even imagine him knowing or liking…” Donna smiled softly, remembering some of those late nights … they’d finish working in the early hours, but would be too psyched to go straight home, and Josh would scrabble around in a drawer and bring out a CD. Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Mozart… he’d put some music on and they’d sit there and talk for a while, or just listen together quietly.

She snapped herself back to the present and hastily cleared her throat. “Anyway, thinking back on it, that was strange.”

“Alright. Was there… anything else?”

“Well - ” Now she’d begun, Donna found herself unable to stop. She’d been concerned about Josh for weeks and had just walled it all up, telling herself everything would be alright and that he’d be back to normal in no time - but now it was as though the dam had burst and she couldn’t stop recounting everything, every memory, every suspicion that had entered her mind over the last few weeks.

She sat up a little straighter and pushed her hair back behind her ear. “About three weeks ago, an F-16 left its formation and nobody knew why. They couldn’t contact the pilot - they knew he was alive but they didn’t know what had gone wrong. Leo asked Josh to look into the pilot’s background, find out a bit about him, but before Josh got very far the news came in that the plane had crashed into a mountain and he - the pilot, Robert Cano – was dead.”

Stanley nodded, non-committally. “Go on.”

“One of the things Josh had had time to find out about Cano was that he’d been shot down over Bosnia.”

Stanley made another note.

“And also – and this is an odd coincidence. They shared a birthday.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And it… I don’t know, it really shook him up, somehow.”

“Hm. And the pilot?”

Donna frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“What happened? You said the plane crashed into a mountain.”

“Yes.” Donna felt her mouth go dry suddenly, her earlier determination to tell Doctor Keyworth as much as she could starting to seep away. There were some things she hadn’t told anyone, suspicions that had begun to crowd into her mind over the last twenty-four hours that she hadn’t voiced to anybody – things she’d just begun to acknowledge to herself, in fact. And the idea of saying… of even suspecting that Josh could … well, it was just too ridiculous. Really, what evidence did she have for any of it?

She looked down at her hands and tried to inject a note of assurance into her voice that she really didn’t feel. “I don’t know if I should be telling you this. I’m just speculating. I mean, it could - ”

Stanley looked at her earnestly. “Donna, what I said before about nothing you say to me leaving this room? It’s still the case.”

In an agony of indecision, Donna reached for her glass of water once more, taking a couple of sips in an effort to buy herself some time. Surely the conclusions she’d begun to draw were at best unlikely…

But if they weren’t, and she said nothing…

She made her choice - and set the glass down carefully in front of her. “Robert Cano was a highly trained pilot,” she said quietly, doing her best to keep an even tone. “I’m sure you know the sorts of psychological tests and evaluations they have to go through. What happened to him - it wasn’t an accident. He didn’t black out or have a heart attack, he was alive when the plane crashed.” Donna lifted her head and forced herself to look Stanley resolutely in the eye, almost as if she were daring herself to put her fears into words, finally. “He committed suicide.”

Stanley just nodded and raised his eyebrows a little, but otherwise his expression didn’t change. He continued to look at her impassively as he said, “And that’s your concern. You think Josh might be suicidal?”

Donna felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. A wave of nausea passed over her, so strong that it made her feel dizzy, and she noticed vaguely that her hands were shaking. She had thought she was prepared for this – from the moment she had embarked on telling the doctor the story of the pilot and how unsettled Josh had been afterwards, she had known that this was where the conversation was going. But now it had come to it, she wasn’t prepared at all and she couldn’t stop Stanley’s words echoing round and round in her mind. As long as the notion had only been in her head, she could keep telling herself just how irrational it was; as long as it was a thought not given voice, she could pretend it wasn’t really there at all, but now, hearing the words spoken made it real and solid, something she could no longer ignore or mock herself for even considering.

She tried to speak and found herself unable to do so. She could feel her mouth moving, forming words she couldn’t say until finally, “No,” a mere croak, emitting from the back of her throat somehow stole past her parched lips. Then –

“No.”

She could feel tears running down her face, and for a split second wondered when she’d begun to cry –

“No!” she sobbed, jumping up and slamming her hand down on the table violently. “He wouldn’t – he couldn’t - ” and then she collapsed back into her chair, covering her face with her hands.

“Donna?” Stanley’s voice, soft but firm cut through the myriad of thoughts and fears rushing around in her brain. “Donna, look at me.”

Donna heard the sound of a chair scraping and opened her eyes to find a box of tissues practically under her nose; she looked up to see Kaytha Trask smiling down at her reassuringly. “It’s okay,” she nodded towards the box and Donna pulled out a handful of tissues.

Kaytha put the box on the table and returned to her seat.

Donna blew her nose.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “It’s just… Josh has gone through a lot, you know? He’s lost so much and now …” her voice dropped to a whisper, “it’s almost as though he’s losing himself, and I can’t bear it.”

Donna sat quietly, her gaze focused on the tissues she was now shredding in her lap. When she eventually looked up, it was to see Stanley purse his lips and nod. “Okay.”

Donna’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He tipped his head to the side. “Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me?”

She shook her head. “Do – do you think you can help him?”

“I’ll do my best.”

She sighed. “He’ll hate it.”

Stanley chuckled, softly. “I’m used to it.”

“No, really he’s… he doesn’t let people in easily. He’ll be flippant and obstructive, and he’ll needle you, and he’ll crack jokes and - ”

“Donna,” he smiled, wryly. “I’ve had a lot of experience at this.”

Donna’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – that is, I… it’s just Josh is so - ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stanley said, dismissively. “It’s natural to be concerned about the people we care about and I know this must have been difficult for you. But you’ve helped. By telling me all this, you’ve helped already.” Donna smiled, weakly. “Josh is lucky to have friends like you looking out for him.

Donna blew her nose again and stood up. “Okay, well, I’d better…” she inclined her head towards the door.

“Sure.” Stanley pushed back his chair and stood facing her across the table. Donna bit her lip. “Will… will he be okay?”

Stanley walked her to the door. “I can’t say anything for sure until I’ve seen Josh. But I can tell you the same thing I’ll tell him – we get better.”

Donna turned and looked up at him intently. “Thank you,” she said, softly. “And if there’s anything else…”

“I’ll let you know.”

With a swift nod, she opened the door and walked out into the corridor, making her way to the bathroom so that she could splash some water on her face and fix her make-up before she returned to her desk.

Staring at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands, Donna realized that Doctor Keyworth had been singularly non-committal. Which she guessed was to have been expected – after all, to have speculated as to his patient’s condition when he hadn’t yet met him would have been unprofessional to say the least. But still, she couldn’t help the fact that she’d hoped to have learned a little more about what might be wrong with Josh.

When she got back to her desk, Josh’s door was closed once more - and it was with a not inconsiderable degree of surprise that she realized she was disappointed. She almost couldn’t believe she was thinking it, but right then, she would have given anything for Josh to have flung open his door, walked into to her cubicle and started fiddling with things on the desk prior to bombarding her with flippant, sarcastic questions about the doctor and what they’d talked about in the session.

But he didn’t.

She stared at the door again, thinking back to what Josh had said before about his hand. She hadn’t believed his explanation - and the one which had taken root in her mind, the one she’d suggested to Leo - was beginning to seem more and more likely. She’d seen Josh angry enough to slam his hand into a wall before now, so the idea that he could have been furious enough to slam it into something else wasn’t at all beyond the realms of possibility.

But the thought that he could be going through something so painful as to make him turn that frustration inwards made something inside of her twist so sharply as to cause an actual, physical ache.

She swallowed hard and turned back to her computer, picking up the first in the pile of memos Josh had given her earlier, trying to focus on the one point of hope that Stanley had given her.

“We get better.”

She fervently hoped, for Josh’s sake, that that was true.





End.