People Will Say We’re in Love

One thing Josh Lyman really hated about Washington DC was the gossip. He knew that gossip could be a problem anywhere, but here in DC, like in Hollywood, it could get really vicious. Sometimes it seemed that all people wanted to read was scandalous rumours about politicians. And that went double for those who worked in the White House. The merest hint of impropriety leaked, and it could become front page news, whether there was a grain of truth in it or not. More often than not, stories without any factual basis whatsoever were the ones that circulated the longest. Like the rumour that he was having a torrid affair with his assistant, Donna Moss.

Now, there was nothing wrong with Donna. Far from it; she was attractive, capable, full of quirks—any man would be very lucky to be going out with her. Which did not account for the idiots she had dated in the past (Dr Freeride anyone?), but that was another story. But his relationship with his assistant was purely professional. He might possibly rely on her a little more than he should, and ask her to do things that may not be typical of an assistant, but that was it. So why did people ask whether he was dating his assistant?

He knew that others in his position would not be so cautious. It was not that uncommon for senators or congressmen to have affairs with their assistants—some people think it is the norm. But he would not do that to Donna. He cared about her too much for that; to ruin her reputation and the respect she had earned during the time since she had walked in and hired herself as his assistant.

Donna tried to ignore the rumours. She could hear the other assistants whispering when they thought she wasn’t paying attention or that she was out of earshot. They all truly thought that she was having an affair with her boss. It was a ludicrous idea at best—Josh Lyman hardly noticed her except to issue orders; besides which she was hardly his type. His type ran more towards bossy brunettes like Mandy or Amy Gardner, even though their personalities tended to clash with Josh’s rather than compliment him.

She knew that the rumours really began to gain ground after the shooting at Rosslyn, when Josh had the three months off work, and she was both looking after him and covering his workload. Her strictness with what Josh was and was not allowed to handle was the source of amusement and derision around the White House, and was probably what fuelled the rumours. It had been necessary however; if Josh had been left to his own devises he would have been back at work too soon and his heart would not have been able to handle the stress. He never took proper care of himself; she was always nagging him about eating healthy and cutting back on the fatty things like burgers and fries. Come to think of it, her nagging probably fuelled the rumours too.

But it was not like she really did anything to fuel the rumours. Sure, she nagged him about what he ate; but she still got what he ordered. She never brought him coffee when he asked for it (except that time when it looked as though he was going to be fired, and she still had no idea why she had done that), and they hardly ever shut themselves in his office when she was taking notes for him. At all times her conduct in the office was professional, and yet still the rumours flew. Sometimes she longed the march over to the whispering assistants and set the facts straight once and for all; but she knew that all that would do was really set fire to the talk. The rumour mill in Washington was really vicious, and that was something she was still getting used to.

There was a musical once that Donna made him watch when he was recuperating after the shooting. He wasn’t really paying attention to it, but there was one song that really made him sit up and take notice, and he had remembered it ever since. It was sung between the lead male and female, and it was all about what to do to stop people gossiping that they were in love (something which he knew was futile even when not paying attention to the movie). But what grabbed him about the song was that there were parts of it that really seemed to apply to him and Donna. Especially the ‘practical list of don’ts’ part. Donna had a list of ‘don’ts’ for him after the shooting that she became quite infamous for. Of course, Donna’s list was more serious than the one from the song, but the same gist was there. And the longer the song stayed stuck in his brain, the more its list seemed to apply to him and the assistant that he was rapidly realising he had deeper feelings for.

Now Josh could not help laughing at Donna sometimes. Despite the experience she had gained working for him she really had a delightful naïveté that was refreshing and somewhat amusing in their line of work. He really wished that she would never lose it, but working in Washington could jade the best of them, and he supposed that in the end she would be no exception to that.

As for bouquets, he never actually threw them at her, but he did buy her one every April for their “anniversary” (it was still a bone of contention with Donna that he continued to consider April as their anniversary marking when she came back to work for him, rather than in February which was when she first began working for him). He knew that it was a little unusual to buy an assistant flowers to mark the anniversary of when she started working for you (whether it was the second time or not), but it was something he liked to do, and he suspected that Donna really did look forward to getting them, even if she snarked about it being in April, not February.

If Josh was to be brutally honest with himself, he would have to admit that there might be a basis for the rumours about him and Donna. Not because there was any truth to them, but because the relationship they had did seem to go beyond that of the typical boss/assistant relationship. Which was natural—he considered Donna to be a good friend as well as his assistant—but when viewed from those without the West Wing, he supposed that it might look a bit odd. After all, Amy Gardener did ask him straight out if he was dating his assistant (and even pressed the point, not satisfied with his immediate ‘no’); and when he was doing Donna a favour by talking to Jack Reese and trying to convince him that she was not a flake, the other man pointed out that he knew of no one who talked about his assistant as much as he did about Donna. Of course, Josh did not necessarily think that the latter point was all that valid considering that at the time he was trying to sell Donna’s good points to the other man to convince him that she was okay to go out with.

But in all, Josh would have to admit that there were times when things probably did look at bit suspicious. Like the times when it seemed he deliberately sabotaged Donna’s dates with work. Now he could argue all he wanted that they were legitimate work issues that had needed to be dealt with; but if he were being brutally honest, he would also have to admit that some of it may have been able to wait, and he did get a certain amount of satisfaction when her dates were cut short or even cancelled all together. But that did not explain why he was so careful that Christmas to explain to her that it wasn’t what it looked like—he wasn’t trumping up work to stop her from getting to the Holiday Inn to spend the holiday with Jack, the President did ask him to work out how to an infant mortality bill into the Federal Budget. It turned out to be a bit of a guilt thing on the President’s part, and Leo ended up getting Donna out of there anyway (and he tried not to think about his reaction when he heard that).

When he realised that he was stuck on certain points about her relationship with Commander Wonderful (aka Jack Reese), he knew that he had to dial it back a bit. Lord only knows what Charlie had thought when he rambled on about the 13 buttons on Reese’s dress pants (and he really tried not to think about how Donna knew that fact). He could not do anything to give credence to the rumours; he would not sabotage the reputation she earned and deserved.

They say you could tell a lot about someone by what they kept in their apartment. Well, if anyone took a good look through her apartment, Donna Moss would be tried and convicted of having some sort of an affair with her boss. After all, why else would she have articles of his clothing stashed in her drawers? The explanation that he sometimes turned up at her place drunk and she let him crash for the night to sleep it off would not suffice—it would likely fan the flames despite being the truth.

Anyway, while that was the truth, it was not the whole truth. Yes, he occasionally turned up at her place drunk, and she kept spare clothes of his on hand for such an eventuality. But that did not explain the tee-shirts and boxers of his that had somehow found their way into her pyjama drawer, or the fact that she had been known to sleep in them on occasion. They were comfortable, she rationalised to herself, and perfect for nights that were in between hot and cold. Josh hadn’t missed them, he even knew she slept in one of his tee-shirts, a fact that had mortified her at the time, but he found it amusing. She even had one of his sweaters stashed away somewhere—he had lent it to her once when it was really cold and hadn’t asked for it back.

Yes, the fact that she had Josh Lyman’s clothes stashed away in her apartment did look suspicious—especially coupled with the fact that she had a toothbrush in her bathroom reserved for his use; it was for the same reason she had his clothes, for when he turned up drunk. Besides, turnabout was fair play; she had left quite a few things at his place from when she was looking after him after Rosslyn. She hadn’t collected them, and as far as she knew they were still there. Just some clothes and toiletries that she had used while she was there, probably still stored in a drawer in his spare room, which served more as a storage area than anything else. She wondered what Amy had thought about it… if she even knew.

Amy had come right out and asked her if she was in love with Josh. Donna could not believe it, it seemed to have come out of nowhere… or maybe not. They had been talking about Josh’s reaction to Amy’s rather tactless comment about a windfall in his list of Vice Presidential candidates. Amy was concerned about his reaction and was afraid that he’d taken it the wrong way, and she had said that you had to ‘get’ Josh to understand why he felt the way he did. Thereby implying that Amy didn’t get Josh while she did. Her statement, while true enough, also implied a hell of a lot more. And, of course, Amy Gardner with her sharp as a tack mind picked up on that. And all the backpeddalling that Donna tried only seemed to make the moment worse.

Amy was the first person to come right out and ask her if she was in love with Josh. CJ had almost implied it during a lockdown. Did that mean there was something there?

Donna could not help remembering the night of President Bartlet's second inauguration. Despite having a dress for the multiple inaugural balls, she chose not to attend, having taken the fall for Jack Reese's comments. She should have known it would not be that easy. Josh had seen through her tactic, had figured out that it was Jack and not she who had made the comments, and turned up that night to take her to the balls, throwing snowballs at her window to get her attention. And he had not come alone.

Josh turning up alone to convince her to go to the balls would have been enough to send the rumour mill into overdrive. And that would have been more discreet. But he had turned up in a cab with Charlie, Toby, Will, and Danny Concannon. At least Charlie and Toby and lately Will worked in the West Wing; they knew that there was nothing romantic between her and Josh, even if their relationship wasn't strictly professional. But Danny was a reporter! Just the appearance of a non-professional relationship between the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and his assistant would have been enough for him to write an article about if he had less ethics.

At least the fact there were witnesses to Josh persuading her to attend the balls with him meant that it was kept more or less above board; which is possibly why Josh brought them. They could attest to the fact that it wasn't a romantic tryst that brought Josh to her apartment. Their presence also meant that she had to sit on someone's lap in the cab ride to the ball. Was it only natural that she sat on Josh's lap?

Was it also only natural to stick as close to Josh as she could that evening, knowing that not everyone would have seen through her tactic of covering for Jack Reese? Eventually the story would get out, she knew that, both the fact she covered for him and that Josh has every confidence in her; but that night fingers would still be pointed. Staying close to Josh meant that gossip was deflected a little… a very little. It also meant that she ended up dancing with him when he wasn't schmoozing and doing what he does at political functions. She did dance with others that night for the sake of politeness—Leo, Toby, Charlie, Danny, Will… but mostly it was with Josh. That was one way of shifting gossip in another, equally undesirable direction.

All the rumours, the innuendos and suggestions had been right… in a manner of speaking. There was a far deeper relationship between Josh and Donna, and feelings that went far beyond friendship. But they did not acknowledge or act upon it while she worked as his assistant, nor for most of the Santos campaign. Not until the night before the election. And it was only during the transition that they defined their relationship.