Ring Christmas Bells

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

Josh allowed himself to be pulled away from the choir by the sound of Donna’s voice. Despite the reaction that music had sparked in him lately, despite the revelation that the PTSD meant he equated music with the sound of the sirens in his head, he was mesmerised by the sound of their singing. It was an harmonised rendition of ‘Ring Christmas Bells’ complete with the ringing of bells. which meant that it should really be annoying him; but somehow it wasn’t. It was soothing, washing away the tension within him, if only temporarily. Letting him forget everything that happened, which was probably why he suggested what he did.

“Donna?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital. We can just go home…” he trailed off when Donna turned and fixed him with a glare.

“No, Josh. You need to see a doctor about your hand.”

“I just spent hours with a doctor,” he tried weakly.

“A medical doctor, Josh. Now stop arguing.”

He did as he was told. He could have reminded her that he was her boss and not the other way around, but chose not to. In matters that were not directly related to his job as the Deputy Chief of Staff, and sometimes in matters that were, she had more than proved that she was as practical as him, perhaps even more so. Okay, maybe not in matters of the heart, but that was neither here nor there. Especially as his track record was no better than hers in that regard. And he must admit, he was not all that eager to go home alone to an empty apartment with a broken window. Even if that meant waiting for who knew how long in the ER.

Just as he had thought, the wait in the ER seemed interminably long, especially as his hand was a relatively minor injury. Josh tried to pass the time by talking about work, things he needed to do when they got back after the Christmas break; talking shop, as it were. Tried being the operative word—Donna shot him down every time he began a new topic. Finally, she snapped, albeit in a quiet tone.

“Josh, I happen to know that you were told to take it easy over the holidays, which does not involve worrying about work. Besides, I hardly think this is the appropriate time or place to be talking about it, do you?”

“Remind me again why I didn’t let you go home for the holidays?”

“Because you’re a mean and nasty boss who doesn’t give me time off,” she replied without blinking, although she softened her words with a smile. “And besides, I wasn’t about to go back home this year in any case. Not when I could see that there was something going on with you.”

“Oh,” Josh blinked, somewhat taken aback by the last part, even though he knew he should have expected it. Donna was like that, after all. He was saved from replying, mercifully, by a doctor calling his name.

“Joshua Lyman?”

“Here,” he called back.

“Step through here, please.”

Josh looked back at Donna, who made no move. “I’ll wait here for you,” she said.

Shrugging, he got up to follow the doctor through the doors. He found himself in an area filled with medical bays where other doctors worked on other patients (though he tried not to look—the last thing he needed was to humiliate himself further by passing out). The doctor led him to a bay to the side, thankfully closed off from the rest by a curtain.

“So how did this happen?” she asked him while she unwrapped his hand.

Not expecting the question (and belatedly realising that he should have realised that he would be asked this), he fell back into the standard response that he had given everyone until Dr. Stanley got the truth out of him. “Oh, I broke a glass in my hand.”

He half expected this doctor to call him on the lie, too; but she simply smiled. “Don’t worry, it happens more than you think. When did you do it?”

“Last night.”

“Hmmm.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Josh noted.

“Well, it’s not necessarily bad, as such; but it’s not great either. This really needs to be sutured, but…”

“So why can’t you just stitch it up?”

“It’s too late. You can only suture a wound such as this within twelve hours of the injury. After that, the edges become too dry to make suturing viable. I can pull the wound closed and hold it with steri-strips, but given the position on your hand, I can’t guarantee it will hold for long.”

Josh shook his head. “That’s fine.”

“Just be careful with it, all right? Be careful, and keep it clean and dry.”

Donna took him back to her apartment, rather than his, when they left the hospital. Her reasons were simple: the window in his apartment would not be fixed until after the holidays, and the boarded-up area would just be a stark reminder of what he did; and the last thing he needed at the moment was to sit alone and stew. Protestations on his part that he was fine were ignored, and her roommate was away for the holidays, so his excuse of imposing fell on deaf ears. Even his last-ditch effort that he had nothing to change into, no clothes at her apartment fell through—apparently, Donna had squirreled away some sweats and tee-shirts of his in the event that he turned up at her apartment drunk, and needed something to change into. This was news to him.

“Donna, when did you turn into a kleptomaniac? Or is that something that has always been the case, and you’ve just kept it hidden?”

Donna rolled her blue eyes. “Don’t be so silly, Josh.”

“It’s not silly to wonder when you started stealing my clothes,” he countered.

“I haven’t been stealing them…”she trailed off as he just looked at her. “You know it’s not unheard of for you to turn up at my place drunk, you’ve done it before and you’ll probably do it again. So while I was looking after you, I just borrowed a few of your tee-shirts and some sweats, just in case you ever needed them.”

“And when were you going to tell me you’d done this?”

“When it came up, like now.”

Josh just shook his head. Donna always seemed to have a logical answer for everything—in her own unique brand of logic, of course. Not that it mattered right now. All that mattered was that he was out of arguments, and so was on his way to spend the night at his assistant’s apartment; and he could not escape the feeling that it was wrong in so many ways. That it could be taken the wrong way and destroy both their reputations—hers more so than his. But short of putting his foot down (metaphorically speaking) and demanding that he go back to his brownstone, there was nothing he could do about it. And he always did seem to find himself doing what Donna told him to do…

He followed her into her small apartment, noting the small Christmas tree in the corner and the decorations that managed to cheer the place up. He smiled to himself—the fact that he was Jewish did not stop him from admiring the decorations of others.

“Have a seat,” Donna said as she closed the door behind her. “And I’ll get us some eggnog.”

“Donna…”

“Yes, Josh, I know you’re Jewish. But there’s nothing in eggnog that would stop you drinking it.”

He was saved from further argument by the ringing of the phone. Not wanting to intrude or appear that he was listening (though the latter would be difficult to fully avoid), he made his way to the couch and sat down, focusing his attention on the tree in the corner. Of course, when he heard who it was on the phone, he couldn’t help but pay attention.

“Hi, Mrs Lyman… Why thank you, and a Happy Hanukkah to you, though I’m a bit late… Josh? He’s here… Yes, he’s had a rough time of it lately, and I thought he shouldn’t be alone… No, he’s all right now, well, getting there at least… That’s perfectly all right, I don’t mind… You want to talk to him? Hold on, I’ll just get him for you.”

Josh was on his feet before she put her hand over the mouthpiece to speak to him. “Josh, it’s your mother.”

“I kind of got that, thanks.” He took the phone from her and watched as she made her way to the kitchen. “Hey, Mom.”

“Don’t you ‘Hey, Mom’ me, Joshua,” her reproving tone came across loud and clear over the phone lines. “Do you know how worried I’ve been about you?”

“Mom, you don’t need to worry. I’m a grown man. I’m fine.”

Josh rolled his eyes, thankful that she couldn’t see him through the phone. She always seemed to know when something was wrong, she called it ‘Mother’s intuition’. “Mom…”

“I tried calling your place, and your cell, but there was no answer. I knew that if I called Donna, she would know how to find you.”

“Sorry about that. I had… a meeting, and Donna had my phone so I wouldn’t be disturbed. She must have put it on silent. And what did you mean by Donna would know how to find me? You couldn’t have known I was here…”

“No, but I knew that Donna would have an idea where you were when I couldn’t get a hold of you. It was just coincidence that you happened to be there when I called her.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Donna’s such a nice girl, always taking care of you. You should marry her.”

“Mom!” Josh felt his ears turn red, and turned to see whether Donna had emerged from the kitchen. Thankfully, she was nowhere in sight to witness his embarrassment. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “She’s my assistant.”

“So? She won’t be your assistant forever.”

“Mom, was there a reason you called?” He needed to get her away from this chain of thought before she went too far with it. No good would come of thinking like that.

“I just wanted to see how you were. Like I said, I had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right with you.”

“I’m fine, Mom. I haven’t had the greatest time of it lately, but Donna figured out what was wrong, and she and Leo called someone for me to talk to.”

“That sounds serious. What was wrong?”

Josh sighed. He really did not want to get into it on the phone, nor did he feel like talking about it at that moment. But he knew his mother, and he knew she wouldn’t give up until she got the whole story. “Stanley, the doctor that Leo called, said it was PTSD—Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—stemming from the shooting.”

“That is serious. And you’re not fine, no matter what you try to tell me. Maybe I should come up.”

“No, Mom, you don’t need to do that. I’m fine…”

“Josh…”

“Okay, maybe not ‘fine’, but I’m getting there. Stanley told me I needed to relax, and he gave me some exercises and things to do when it starts to get a bit much.”

“All right Josh, I won’t come up… yet. I’ll call you in a few days, and if I can’t get a hold of you then, I’ll fly up personally to find out why. And if you haven’t been taking care of yourself, then you’ll really get it.”

Josh smiled. Some things never changed, and his mother was one of them. “Yes, Mom.”

“All right then. I’ll leave you two to it, then. Give Donna my love, Josh, and remember, I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Okay, bye Mom.”

With some uncanny instinct of her own, Donna did not re-emerge until he disconnected the call. “Have a nice chat?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he replied automatically. “Mom sends you her love.”

“Of course she does. Are you going to stand there all night?”

He blinked, and realised that he had not moved since the call ended. Looking up, he saw that Donna was already seated on the couch, a tray with two glasses of what he presumed to be eggnog on the coffee table in front of her. Forcing his legs to move, he joined her there. “Sorry.”

A silence followed as they drank the eggnog, not entirely awkward, but neither was it especially comfortable. Nursing his drink, Josh looked around the living room of the small apartment, eventually focusing on the tree in the corner, its lights blinking merrily. He found himself mesmerised by the lights, staring at them and losing all sense of time and place until Donna started snapping her fingers in front of his face.

“What?” he blinked. “Sorry, Donna, I must have spaced out there for a minute.”

“That’s all right. I just thought you might want to change into something more comfortable.”

“Yeah, right, that would be good,” he replied distractedly. Before he knew it, he found himself at the bathroom door, his own clothes pressed into the hands. “Mind explaining to me why you have sweats and shirts that belong to me?” he asked a retreating Donna.

“We’ve already been over this, Josh,” came her patient reply.

“Oh, yeah.” He shook his head again to clear it whilst he was changing. Without work or something constructive to focus his mind on, he found that his thoughts were all over the place. Perhaps it was for the best that he was here rather than alone in his own apartment. Suddenly, he felt incredibly tired, and wanted nothing more than to crash on the couch.

And as Donna had the uncanny ability to sense what he needed, he found her making up the couch into a make-shift bed. “It’s been a long day. I thought we could both use some sleep.”

Right on cue, he yawned. “I was just thinking that myself.”

“But before I go,” he found a present pressed into his hands. “Merry Christmas.”

“What’s this?” he asked, belatedly realising that it was a stupid question.

She rolled her eyes. “What does it look like? If it makes it easier, think of it as an Hanukah present. Open it.”

Instead of getting into an argument over the facts of the Hanukah holiday (which she probably knew as well as he did), he did as he was told. Inside, he found a black velvet jewellers’ box; opening this, he saw that it was a tie clip and cuff links set. Acid-etched into the silver was a simple, inoffensive, geometric pattern; nothing that would preclude the set from being worn to the White House, which he presumed was the intention.

“This is great, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Before I forget,” Josh rummaged through his backpack, pulling out a rectangular package of his own. “I meant to give this to you earlier today, but with everything that happened, I never got the chance. Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, Josh.” Tearing the package open revealed a book of Tennyson’s poems, which she opened to read the inscription he had written there (a tradition he carried over from the year before). “Oh, Josh,” she said again.

“I remembered that you said you liked Tennyson, so I went back to that bookstore…” he trailed off. There were tears in her blue eyes which he didn’t want to see fall—he wasn’t sure if he could handle a crying Donna at that moment.

But she managed to hold it together. Opening the book to a random page, she began reading aloud. “ ‘A red-cross’d knight forever kneel'd / To a lady in his shield / That sparkl'd on the yellow field / Beside remote Shalot‘. This is great, Josh. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas, Donna.”