Chapter Text
The hotel was gorgeous and Josh was really glad he didn’t just book into a Marriott. He’d got them a suite, something that wouldn’t remind them both of the hundreds of generic hotel rooms they’d stayed in across the country. He dropped his bag as Donna stepped in behind him. They had a balcony with an ocean view and the room was airy and decorated in wood and linens. It was perfect.
“So, we came to Hawaii.” Josh said as Donna walked around him to check out the room.
“Yes Josh. This is indeed Hawaii.” She told him with a smile as she brushed a hand over the bedsheets. “This is amazing Josh. We can take a few days, sit on the beach and just not think about work.” She said it more in hope than expectation. She was sure that at some point Josh would give and talk about work.
“Yeah, before that though I need you to do one tiny thing for me.” He asked, biting his lip. His hands in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched as he looked her way. It was his nervous, excited, worried look she’d seen it a lot.
“What is it Josh?” She said with a sigh.
“Could you send Helen the room's phone extension and tell her we got here okay? I left my Blackberry at the office.” He finished with a grin that Donna returned. She was amazed, he’d really left it all behind, for her . The man was going to go crazy by the end of the week but he did it for her.
“That I can do. I’ll just go check out the balcony and call. You can do some unpacking while I’m busy.” She instructed him with a look to the bag he’d dropped carelessly by the door. He looked at his bag and wasn’t really sure what she meant. He never unpacked when he travelled. However this week was for Donna as much as him so he would follow instructions. He moved the bag to the bed and pulled out his toiletries bag.
On the balcony Donna called Helen Santos. She couldn’t believe the call she was making to the first lady in waiting.
“Donna, should you be calling? I thought you were on holiday.” Helen answered.
“Josh left his Blackberry in the office, I’m sure Sam will find it. He wanted me to let you know that we got here okay and give you the room number in case of emergency.” Donna told her trying to keep it light. Helen laughed.
“I like it. Glad you called me. I promise I won’t hand it over except in case of invasion.” Helen’s voice sounded evil as he told her, she clearly was looking forward to the fall out when Matt realised he couldn’t get hold of Josh.
“Thank you. I’m sorry to steal him like this.” Donna really liked Helen, she was pretty sure she was going to take the job.
“No, he needs the time away and you and him need to sort things. Plus it gives me time to move him in. If I leave it to him they’ll just be a suitcase in the corner for the next four years.” Helen seemed honest about it and Donna could believe it, Josh was far too used to the campaign trail. He didn’t unpack until he needed something and his clothes lived in dry cleaning bags hung on his treadmill. She glanced back into the room to see Josh just moving things from the suitcase to a draw. He was basically repacking into the draws. It was weird.
“Thanks Helen. Have a good week.” Donna was getting used to this idea of calling her Helen.
“Take care of him for us Donna, and take care of yourself. Bye.” However casual Donna was adjusting to being with Helen she still waited for her to hang up. Josh had opened her bag on the bed and was staring at the contents baffled.
“What needs hanging up?” He asked her, staring at the women’s clothes. He felt like he should know if you needed to hang out a summer dress but he really had no idea.
“I’ll sort my stuff, Josh. Thank you for unpacking though.” Donna pushed him gently away from her suitcase and Josh went holding up his hands in surrender. He walked away from her not sure what to do for a second. He had no work, no phone, no papers. He picked up the tv remote and automatically flipped to the nearest news channel. “Josh.” Donna gently admonished him and he sighed flipping to sports.
Donna didn’t need much time to unpack and get things hanging in the closet. She wandered over to sit next to Josh on the sofa. He instantly put an arm over her shoulders so she was able to sit into his side.
“So, we came to Hawaii.” She said.
“Yeah, we did.” He said. They both looked back over to the large bed then back to each other. Donna attacked Josh’s lips.
~~*~~
They didn’t have time to make a reservation or look for a restaurant before they got hungry that evening so they decided to just head down to the hotel restaurant. They wandered in hand in hand and got a patio table. It was a gorgeous evening and the smell of the sea floated across the beach to them as they watched the sun set.
“God, it’s beautiful here.” Josh murmured looking out over the view.
“Yeah, it really is.” Donna responded, they still hadn’t let go of each other's hands. They were still stretched out across the table.
“I should have brought you here years ago.” He told her, ignoring the menu and looking her straight in the eyes.
“I was your assistant Josh.” Donna said, pulling her hand away. “If you’d brought me then it would have been for work. We’d be in a crappy hotel, constantly on the move and talking to boring old men.” Josh huffed and rubbed his face. He still looked tired but less like he was about to give himself a heart attack.
“I know and if it had been anything more than that I would have been lying to you and it wouldn’t have worked. I know, but it’s taken far too long to get here.” He folded his arms and stared at the table for a moment before looking back up at Donna. “Thanks for waiting for me.” He told her. He knew she hadn’t always been there but when she hadn’t been she’d always come back.
Donna felt her eyes well. Josh had said many things to her over the past few weeks about how he’d felt but he’d never done that before. He’d never thanked him for the waiting. She hadn’t had another option though.
“I had to wait for someone to measure up. No one ever did.” Josh smiled at that. For all his arrogance this was one area where he never thought he shaped up. He never thought he was a very good sub, or switch or boyfriend. Donna knew differently. He just got scared a lot and people let him run too often. She knew what a skittish Josh looked like and she wasn’t going to let him bolt on her ever again. If she could she was going to try to stop him bolting on the Santos’ either. They were good for him.
Josh didn’t respond, he opened his menu and looked at food. They had all week to talk and he wanted to enjoy this evening and the beach and the quiet.
~~*~~
It was an odd sort of chaos. They were moving but not really unpacking or moving out of the house back in Texas. So she was organising their personal belongings, clothes, photos and the small things of life into the huge space of Blair House. She’d picked out a set of rooms for them to keep some sort of normality.
She was putting herself and Matt in a large room with plenty of room to spare in the closet. She smiled at the left over space. She was hoping Josh would get his list to Sam soon but she was compiling her own list of things she wanted him to bring across regardless of whether it was on Josh’s list or not.
There was a smaller room next to it which she liked a lot. It was close and it was comfortable and it would work well for Josh. Across the hall were the kids rooms. She’d got some different beds for them, modern single beds and furniture to match. She’d thought about getting their stuff shipped but they were both growing out of it anyway. This way she didn’t have to dismantle their home there. This stuff they could take with them to the whitehouse in a couple of months.
She wasn’t sure what they were going to do about Josh’s apartment though. The press weren’t going to like it if they kept it. That was an issue they could probably push back past the claiming. In the meantime she and Matt needed to check out schools. She had a meeting with the secret service later to talk about the houses and schools.
Later though Matt would be coming back here for the night. She had one thing she wasn’t letting others set up for her. She had some toys for them to hook up in the bedroom. She was looking forward to doing it with him.
~~*~~
Sam stared at yet another file. Don’t get him wrong they were good files but they were impossible to get through. They went on forever and there didn’t appear to be a filing system. He had sorted a few appointments but was still struggling to sort some things. He was also going to have to talk to Matt later, get him up to date on the main players on his schedule. He was also going to have to catch up with Lou and make sure they were ready for the press. They were going to talk about the move to Blair House and the plans with Josh.
He sighed, they needed to start getting on track. He was decided, tomorrow they were going to have a senior staff. Touch base before the start of the day. They may not have all the people they need yet but it would help if he had a morning meeting with Lou and Annabeth each morning and Josh as well when he got back. It would be a good start to things.
Lou stuck her head round the door.
“There was a note on my email saying Josh was out for the week? What’s going on?” She asked the new guy.
“He needed a vacation. He’ll be back end of the week. I’m running things in the meantime.” She gave him an inspecting look and then stepped into the office.
“You’ll do. I’ve got the media rundown for this morning. The president elect has a public appearance after lunch so we’re pulling together some language for that.” Lou handed him a file.
“I’ll have a look.” Sam told her.
“I know you used to be in communications but I’m gonna have to ask you to keep out of things unless you have my say so. Clear?” Sam felt like a small child being told not to pee on the rug.
“That’s fine. I should probably read over this and talk to the president elect when he gets here.” Just at that moment Matt Santos walked in flanked by his secret service detail heading straight for his office. There was a noticeable spring in his step. He looked confident, comfortable and cheery for the first time in the transition offices.
“Well someone got laid.” Lou muttered next to him before heading back to her own desk.
“Mr Seaborn. My office now.” He called as he passed. Sam moved to follow them to the office. He wasn’t sure what he was being summoned for. The president elect paused at his assistants desk and asked for two coffees and handed off his jacket. In his office he waved Sam to the seating area and went to put his briefcase behind the desk. “I’m assuming since you came up with Josh that you’ll want to talk before I start my schedule in the mornings?”
“Yes sir. Though if you don’t mind in future I’d like to push it half an hour. Give you a chance to settle for the day and me a chance to meet with staff so we can all brief you properly in the mornings. I’m sure Josh would have done the same if he’d had enough of his senior staff together before. I’m not up to date though so I’ll need them more.” Sam told him, dropping some files on the coffee table.
“Sounds good to me.” He said heading back to sit across from Sam. “Before we go any further though I need to confirm a few things. Did someone really mail Josh Donna’s underwear?”
~~*~~
The after lunch event was overseen by Lou. It was supposed to just be a quick couple of comments about education. He took a couple of questions and then he got hit with it.
“President Elect Santos are you aware of Josh Lyman’s affair with Donna Moss?” He was frozen for a second by the question. He had no idea how to answer. “They were seen at a hotel in Hawaii sharing a room. Has your sub to be already run off on you?” He wanted to answer but it sounded so sleazy. Lou dived in and diverted the press stopping the questioning.
“The personal life of staffers is not something we comment on.” She got him back to the motorcade without too much trouble.
“What the hell was that?” Matt asked once the door was closed.
“We should have expected this. We’ll get back and then we need to sort out a response.”
“My sub is not running off on me.” Matt growled out.
“I know that, sir. People just want gossip.”
“I knew he was taking Donna with him before he did! God damn it!” He yelled getting mad.
“Sir, we all know that you and Josh are solid. That man is crazy about you and for whatever reason which, to be clear, I never want to know, you and Helen are crazy about him. This is just a press rumour, we may need to tell the press about Josh and Donna dating but we need to make sure we give it the right spin.” Lou was thinking if she kept talking she might be able to stop Matt exploding over this in the car. In her mind though she was busy running through everything they needed to do. First they needed to find out what the press had and check if anything beyond the tabloids were going to pick this up.
Lou managed to keep him calm and get him back to his office. She was pleased when Sam worked out instantly that he needed to join them.
“I saw what happened.” He said as he came in. He’d been watching the coverage live. “We need to get on top of this before it spirals and they start bringing up the old rumours.” Sam told them.
“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that. They’ll be all over this. We need to make a statement quick.” Lou responded while Matt paced.
“What rumours?! What exactly makes this more complicated than me telling them we knew about him and Donna?!” He was yelling.
“Josh had a reputation for a long time. There were a lot of women and a lot of subs who at some point or other claimed to have had something.” Sam told him. “There were rumours after some of the balls that we squashed pretty quick that he and Donna had a thing. It’ll almost certainly come up.” Sam told him. He didn’t expect a good reaction.
“What women?! Subs!” He demanded of his subs best friend.
“As far as I know nothing actually happened with any of them but Josh was good at keeping up a front. He flirted a lot. He was on lists of most eligible bachelors. So, some of the subs he flirted with and helped get cabs home after they drank too much told people he’d topped them. He used to think it was funny. Used to just smile and claim to be a gentleman.” Sam admitted knowing this was not going to go well.
“Look we need to ignore the rumours and address the current situation. We tell them that you gave Josh a week off with his girlfriend since they’ve both been working hard. Then we move straight to talking about the move and that Josh will be joining you in Blair House.” Lou told the room waiting for a response.
“We can’t just skate over Josh and Donna dating; they're going to leap all over us for that one.” Sam pointed out. “The family values guys are gonna go nuts over it.”
“They’re already hitting us over the first family’s arrangement. They’re not going to get worse.” Lou sneered. They had been taking a lot of flak for Josh’s ethnicity, the president elect and his wife both being tops and Josh’s age. For some reason people had an issue with Matt choosing Josh because he was the same age as him. It seemed an odd old fashioned view of things but there it was.
“I don’t think we should make the statement.” Matt suddenly said.
“Sir, we need to say something or this is going to steal the news cycle for days.” Lou told him earnestly.
“The response to a personal situation needs to be personal but it shouldn’t come from me. It’ll make me look distracted. I think we should get Helen to do it.” He told the two of them leaning against the desk.
“That…” Sam paused looking surprised. “That could work. Keeps it a no comment from the office but puts the story down.”
“Help Helen’s image as well. She’s been pretty quiet for a while. It’ll make it a family issue but also paints her as in charge and in control. She tells the world and charms them with it.” Lou followed. “We need to get her on a talk show. Make this feel like a coffee klatch issue. Not an announcement, just a talk. Nothing more to see here then talking about the Blair House.”
“Why not at Blair House? See if we can get someone interested in a tour and a chat with the future first lady. Delays the response till the morning but that way we don’t look too reactive either.” Sam suggested that way they could play the whole thing down and not pull attention. Josh would certainly like it.