Archive of Our Own ^beta

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It was a rainbow blanket, with gold trim around the edges. You could tell that it’d been well loved by the patches of various fabrics and the well worn state of the fabric. Rachel had told Donna the story of the blanket when she’d given it to them.

It’d been Joanie’s first, given to her as a baby by her mother’s parents. Then, Joanie gave it to Josh when he was born, her first act of love as a big sister. She knew it would protect him, just as it had protected her. Josh took that blanket with him everywhere, the only reason it had survived the fire. It wasn’t until he was in college that he’d left it at home. Insisting that he had outgrown it, but in reality, he didn’t want to take one of the last pieces of Joanie that they had away from his parents.

Rachel had insisted on visiting after Josh and Donna had told her that she was going to be a grandmother. So, she joined them for Thanksgiving that year and when she’d pulled the blanket from her suitcase, tears came to Josh’s eyes. He asked her if she was sure she wanted to give up this piece of Joanie. She told him she had all the pieces she needed in her heart.

Caroline Joan Lyman was born several months later. She left the hospital wrapped in the rainbow blanket. Donna’s favorite picture of that moment is of Josh holding her with a look of pure joy and adoration in his eyes. Josh prefers the one of his mother holding her granddaughter, wrapped in her lost daughter’s blanket, with tears in her eyes.

As the years go by, Josh is hit by these feelings of nostalgia and sadness. Caroline loves that blanket as much as Josh and Joanie did. And so, Josh will watch his eldest daughter and for a brief moment, he’ll be reminded of his sister. He’ll realize how she would have looked at that age with her blanket. In those moments, he wraps Caroline up in a hug and despite never wanting to let her go, he simply makes her laugh and joins in her fun.

Caroline is three when her younger sister, Alexis Marie, is born. When Josh brings her to the hospital to meet her sister, Caroline brings her blanket and simply lays it on top of the baby, looks at Josh and says, “Share?” to which he nods yes, too overcome with emotion for words. As his girls grow up, he often finds them together during storms. Both holding onto the blanket that comforted him for so many years.

Josh tells the girls the story of the blanket when Caroline is ten. He tells them about Joanie and the fire and how much he loved his sister. Alexis gives him a hug and says she can’t imagine not having her sister. Caroline tells him that they can share it with him so he doesn’t forget his sister. He smiles and pulls his daughters closer, grateful that they have such big hearts.

It seems like a blink of an eye has passed when Caroline hands him his oldest granddaughter for the first time, wrapped in a rainbow blanket with gold trim around the edges.

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He’d given her several pieces of jewelry throughout the almost ten years they’d known each other. If you’d asked her a year ago, Donna would have told you that the greatest piece he’d ever given her was the badge he handed her on her first day at Bartlet for America. It was the first time any one had given her a piece of jewelry, a fact that she didn’t let him know until their third night in Hawaii.

~

Their first year in office, he’d given her a bracelet for her birthday. Nothing fancy, just a simple silver piece that would be work appropriate and go with everything she owned. She tried not to get too emotional when he gave it to her but she couldn’t help herself. She kept telling herself it was just a silly crush on her boss, nothing more. Then his face lit up as he helped her put it on and her heart beat even faster while her smile grew even more.

~

Just before he’d been released from the hospital after Rosslyn, he’d given her a keychain with a key to his apartment. He just wanted her to get things ready before he came home and it made sense since she would be staying with him. Except, he’d managed to find a small house charm to put on the ring with the key.

“So it stands out from your other keys” he had explained but it’d brought one the first smiles she’d had after weeks of sadness.

~

After Bartlet won his second election, Josh had insisted on buying at least one piece of Donna’s jewelry for the Inauguration Balls. After the year they’d had, between the hearings and re-election, she’d more than earned it and he wanted to repay her efforts. So, she’d picked out a pair of dangling crystal earrings. Nothing terribly fancy or expensive, despite his insistence that this was a free pass to go all out on his dime. They were elegant and the way he’d looked at her when they were standing on her doorstep had made them worth so much more than money.

~

He’d only given her one piece during their second term. A small pendant necklace right before she went to Gaza. He told her that he hoped it protected her while she was over there. He had asked Toby to have a rabbi bless it, couldn’t be too safe you know and the big guy was more likely to do Toby a favor than him. It’d been lost in the explosion but when she walked onto the plane over there, she’d never felt more safe.

~

However, the piece that she’d loved the most the instant that she saw it, was the engagement ring he gave her the other night. Just one year after their trip to Hawaii, where they made each other the priority instead of politics and talked about everything that had happened between them. They agreed that neither of them were ready to get married right away and instead they needed to take time to learn this new dynamic and the new people they’d become. She’d told him after they returned from a trip to Florida for Thanksgiving that she was ready for that next step but there was no rush if he wasn’t.

The ring was a family heirloom. Apparently, they were just as in sync as ever and he’d asked his mother for it when they’d gone down there. The ring itself was absolutely beautiful but what made it her favorite piece, and the reason she couldn’t stop looking at it, was because it signified something she’d been hoping for ever since he gave her that first piece of jewelry. They would be together forever.