THE WEST WING:
SPACE TO TURN

by RJB

DISCLAIMER: The West Wing belongs to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, and/or NBC. It certainly does not belong to me. This is non-profit fan fiction; no money is involved and no infringement is intended.

TIMELINE: This story takes place in the first year of the Santos administration. It's a prequel of sorts to a longer story I'm planning, but it also stands on its own.

--

The lights in the Deputy Chief of Staff's office had been turned down low, and for a second Donna Moss thought its occupant had gone home for the day. Then she saw somebody stir in the chair, which was turned away from the desk.

"Sam?" she guessed. "Good, you're here. I was wondering if you had any notes on the First Lady's speech for the National--"

She trailed off. Now that she got a better look at it, that wasn't the back of Sam Seaborn's head. She knew the back of that head well. Nearly a year ago, it had become her delegated responsibility to do something about the cowlick in the middle of it.

"Why are you skulking down here, Josh?"

Josh Lyman half-turned in the chair. "I'm not skulking. I'm... thinking."

"Pressing national security issues?"

"Could be."

Donna frowned, considering. As Matthew Santos' Chief of Staff, it was entirely possible Josh was considering such issues, and under no responsibility to share them with the First Lady's office. On the other hand, as Donna's boyfriend, he was responsible for sharing practically anything else-- even if, in his third and primary capacity as the most exasperating man in the world, he often took perverse delight in his failure to do so.

"Fine. Continue skulking, then. I was just looking for Sam..."

"Mmm," said Josh. He turned the chair back toward the wall.

Donna took a step into the office and stopped again. "Did you know that 87 percent of relationships break up due to lack of communication?"

"I'm pretty sure you're making that figure up, but thanks for, you know, communicating it."

"You're really not going to tell me why you're down here?"

"Signs point to 'No.' I read the speech for NOW, by the way. It sucked."

Donna blinked. A copy of the speech was, in fact, open atop the Deputy's desk. "You didn't like it? It's a treatise in defense of your policies!"

"Yeah. A lot of our policies suck, too."

"You think you should maybe do something about that?"

Josh's shoulders moved in a shrug. "Thought about it, but if we fix the Federal Government now, what are we gonna do for the next three years?

"Fair point. Why are you reading our speeches?"

"I dunno, why are you in my deputy's office?"

"Why are you skulking in your deputy's office?"

"Okay," said Josh, turning the chair around, "this could go on for a while."

"The speech does suck," Donna admitted. "That's why I'm looking for Sam."

"You're not crowding his desk with this knucklehead stuff, are you?"

"Are you not clear that it's the First Lady of the United States I work for? But I'm sure she'll be happy to hear you think she's a knucklehead. That will do wonders to improve her already-wavering opinion of you."

"I'm saying, Sam's no longer a speechwriter!"

Donna smirked. "That's why I'm not looking for Sam Seaborn, Deputy Chief of Staff. I'm looking for my old friend Sam, who might have some friendly suggestions."

"How d'you plan to keep those separate?"

"The same way I separate the Josh Lyman I sleep with from the one who's currently pissing me off."

Josh went blank for a second. "Yeah, thanks for doin' that..."

"You can thank me by pointing me to Sam."

"I sent him home."

Donna checked her watch. "It's not even eleven o'clock. The government's not shutting down again, is it?"

"No, I'm just imposing a maximum 16-hour workday on guys whose fiancée left them."

"Oh, no..." Donna sat down in the chair across the desk. The grapevine said this had been coming for a while, but... "Poor Sam."

"He says it's my fault."

"For dragging him across the country yet again to sacrifice his last chance at a personal life on the altar of national service?"

Josh cleared his throat. "Well, that, but there's also a general hating-me issue. I'm arrogant and misanthropic and apparently I'm rubbing off on Sam."

"I don't think I like this woman," said Donna, wrinkling her nose.

"Okay, are you being supportive or setting a trap?"

"The misanthropic thing I get, and the arrogance I get, but if you were going to rub off on Sam, it would have happened years ago." Josh smiled at that, but not as much as she'd been expecting. Donna dropped her voice to just above a whisper. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's... apparently they had a big fight, but he's pretty much over it. He's got a date with the White House Counsel."

"That must have been some fight!"

For a moment, they stared at each other. Then Josh burst out laughing.

"No... okay, let me rephrase. He's got a date with Ainsley Hayes, who is the White House Counsel. And those two things are totally unrelated."

"Oh... right." Donna smiled sheepishly. She reached across the top of the desk and took Josh's hand. "So what are you thinking about?"

"Nuclear war. CIA says the French are about to nuke us."

"Josh..."

He shrugged. "The-- I dunno-- any of the things we were just talking about! I'm worried about Sam!"

Donna shook her head. "No, see, this isn't worried-about-Sam behavior. If you were worried about Sam, you'd take action. You might, for example, give him the night off and mock him relentlessly until he agreed to a fix-up with Ainsley Hayes..."

"I didn't fix them up!" Josh insisted. When Donna arched an eyebrow that said she wasn't buying, he sighed. "I might have suggested-- or, you know, ordered her to get him drunk. Whether she takes advantage of him after that is totally her call."

"Generous of you."

"Yeah, I like to think of myself as benevolent in my rule."

"See, that's worried-Josh behavior. Sitting in a darkened office, brooding on the state of the world... that's more of a Toby thing." Donna stared at him. "So, I repeat, what you thinking about?"

"Just-- nothing. I did come down here to talk to Sam. Then he left, and I was sitting here in my old office, in my old chair, and I... dunno." Josh trailed off, staring at the chalkboard on the wall, still familiar even though it was filled with Sam's much neater handwriting. Donna once spent a week writing a Josh-to-English dictionary for the rest of the staff.

He continued, "We had some great times here, didn't we?"

"I guess."

"C'mon, you and me working together... Toby, CJ... Leo. I love my job now, don't get me wrong, but... that's the way it was supposed to be." Josh leaned forward in his chair. "Hey... wanna go out to the bullpen and I'll, you know, summon you with a mighty bellow for old times' sake?"

"I really, really don't."

"DONNA!! C'mon, I miss that. Don't you miss that?"

"It's maybe a little more fun to do the summoning than it is to be summoned," said Donna. She smacked the side of her head in hopes of restoring the hearing to her left ear.

Josh removed his hand and settled back in the chair, visibly turned off by her lack of enthusiasm. For a long moment, he didn't speak.

"I didn't mean to diminish you, y'know."

"I didn't say--"

"It's just that every time we've talked about this-- which is almost never, by the way-- I've gotten the impression you felt like I didn't respect you when you worked for me. I just want to say, you literally couldn't be more wrong."

"I know," Donna said.

"Okay. So..." Josh took a deep breath and stood. "Why didn't you tell me before you left?"

"I tried. I tried for a long time! Remember, I set up a lunch?"

"Oh, a lunch! That's right, I forgot how slurping down yogurt improves your ability to form a sentence!"

A little taken aback by the hurt in his voice, Donna stammered out her answer. "I... you're not so good with the listening..."

"Oh, come on! Since when were you ever afraid to talk to me? Since when did you not force an hour-long debate on every piddling topic that caught your interest, from health care to the national debt? And you couldn't take ten seconds to make it clear to me that I was about to lose you?"

He was around the desk now; they were yelling at each other and Donna wasn't entirely clear why. The next thing she knew, she was blurting out, "When I did that, you gave me a make-work trip to Gaza as a phony--"

"That was supposed to be a learning experience!"

"Yeah, well, I learned a lot, didn't I?"

Josh drew back as though struck. Donna turned bright red, already backpedaling from the line she'd crossed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I--"

"You blame me for that?"

"No," she said. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

Josh lowered his eyes. "I blame me for that."

"You shouldn't." Donna took a long, shuddering breath and tried again. "I make my own decisions, Josh. It's not your fault I got hurt, it's not your fault Sam is single again, and it's not your fault that eight years passed and Leo died and everything changed. It kind of is your fault that our policies suck, but we'll work on that. The rest of it just... happened."

"Yeah..." Josh sighed. "I helped it happen."

"Look." Donna took a step closer, wondering whether they'd avoided this subject for so long because he couldn't handle it, or because she couldn't. Either way, it was time to have it out. "Don't you see it's good that it happened this way? What did you want me to do, hang on your every word indefinitely like the loyal secretary in a Humphrey Bogart movie?"

Josh cracked a smile. "I'm Bogey now?"

"For the limited purpose of this analogy."

"Can you be Ingrid Bergman, 'cause I always had a thing for--"

"Josh, focus, okay? This isn't about your sorry adolescent fantasies."

"I like to think it's always about my adolescent--"

"Focus." But Donna smiled too, a little. "Maybe we could have worked it out. Maybe you'd have increased my responsibilities and I'd have started with the Santos campaign and maybe I'd even be the First Lady's Chief of Staff and everything would be good professionally, but there wouldn't be an us."

Josh blinked. "I don't follow."

"Look..." Donna groped for an example. "Did you ever make a three-point turn?"

"A... wha'?"

"A three-point turn, like with a car."

"I can tell this is gonna be a good one," said Josh.

"You need space to turn around."

"Is there a whole part of your brain devoted to coming up with Donna-metaphors that ironically will end up making sense only to your brain?"

"This one works!" Donna insisted. "I'm trying to tell you, Josh! I'm saying you had me jammed into a tiny parking space!"

"I'm almost sure I didn't."

"Again, for the purpose of this analogy!"

Josh laughed. "Sounds like fun, though..."

"You're right, we did have some good times. We had too many good times. We were very... comfortable. You didn't want things to change, but I did-- in a lot of ways. What are you always telling me when there's a big vote we need? 'Don't wait for the events, make the events.' So I did. I just needed some space to get turned in the right direction."

"Donna..."

"And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry if that made you feel unappreciated or abandoned, 'cause that wasn't my intention..."

"Donna."

"But I like the way it turned out, don't you? Don't you think it's for the--"

Josh grinned. "Donna, you realize you could've kissed me, like, ten minutes ago and rendered this whole conversation unnecessary?"

"Yeah. But I'm glad we had it." She took both his hands in hers. "Besides, until we leave this building, you're still Josh-who-pisses-me-off."

"Then I think it's time to go," he said, and led her toward the door.

Donna stopped, turned back, and retrieved the speech from on the desk. "Meet you at the car. I still need to find an itinerant speechwriter to punch this up."

"I can take a look at that for--"

"Really? You want to do the final polish on a 20-minute speech about women's reproductive rights?"

Josh frowned. "Yeah, maybe you should find somebody for that who's more--"

"Sensitive? Evolved? Less Neolithic?"

"Or at least more unsuspecting. You know who'd be good? Sam."

"My thoughts exactly." Donna shook her head. "Sam and Ainsley Hayes. You really think...?"

"Maybe. I dunno. I just thought I'd try making some events."

He turned and walked out. Donna remained where she was, thinking back. Then, in a loud voice, she cried:

"DONNA!!"

A moment later, Josh stepped inside. "Did you just... summon yourself?"

"I was trying something. I really don't see the appeal."

"You should try doing it when a hot blonde answers."

"That's an idea." She grinned. "Maybe I can get that Scandinavian guy who works in Lou's office."

"Are you being Donna-who-pisses-me-off now?"

"Only because I'm alienated by your sucky policies."

"I don't think Sam's gonna be back tonight," Josh said. "You should leave that speech 'till morning."

"Yeah."

By the time Donna joined Josh in the doorway, he was staring wistfully into the office... at the chalkboard in particular.

"Look at those letters. I think he uses a slide rule."

"Come on," Donna said, taking his arm. "Let's go parallel park."

"By that you mean...?"

"For the purpose of analogy."

"Okay," said Josh, and they left the office together.

THE END

Watch for "The Long Road Back: Santos Years 1-2." A full-length West Wing story, coming soon!