Title: Covenants

Author: Zinke

Category: Post-episode, Angst.

Characters: Josh Lyman, Donna Moss.

Pairings: J/D UST/Friendship.

Rating: Child.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Borrowed for the purposes of commemoration. Will
return to AS, JW and NBC post haste.

Spoilers: 'Crackpots and these Women', 'Isaac and Ishmael'.

Summary: Post-episode for "Isaac and Ishmael"; Promises borne from
love are a mighty and humbling thing.



Author's Notes: It's difficult not to feel the effects of the
anniversary of 9/11 when you are living in New York City. I imagine
it's hard not to feel it if you don't live in The City, either.
Anyway, this was largely composed on the fifth anniversary, and is
dedicated to everyone who lost someone, or something, on that clear
September morning.



In my world, this episode takes place in the happy land of season two,
after 'The Stackhouse Filibuster' and before '17 People'. And for
those who read this and cry 'injustice' to my changing a bit of first
season canon, I apologize. That said there is no way that Josh could
have given back that NSC card. That's just not how these things work.
So, in my world, it was handed right back to him. Sorry.



Speaking of things that can be given right back...feedback, to me. I
promise to keep it safe in my overstuffed wallet. You can find all of
my other stories archived at my journal:
http://zinke.livejournal.com/1558.html



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A stack of dusty files cradled in her arms, Donna made her way through
the darkened bullpen towards her desk. The area was unusually empty
for the hour; she assumed the reason was that most staffers had made a
break for home shortly after the crash had been lifted. She really
couldn't blame them; she hoped to be doing the same just as soon as
she had things organized for Josh's meeting tomorrow morning.



She had to admit, if only to herself, that she'd been relieved when
Leo had all but ordered Josh to go home about a half hour ago. Despite
having been all but out the door immediately before the crash, Josh
had protested vehemently, claiming that he had had work to do. But Leo
had obviously seen what she had in Josh's tired eyes and guarded
expression, because he'd brooked no argument, tempering his strict
directive with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder and sympathetic eyes.



Lost in thought, she nearly walked headfirst into Josh's closed office
door-a door that had been left open when she'd vacated her desk only a
few minutes earlier. With mounting concern, she hefted the files onto
her hip and raised her now free hand to knock softly. "Josh?"



Receiving no answer, she cautiously opened the office door,
momentarily relieved to find it unlit and still. Squinting into the
gloom, however, her anxiety returned with a vengeance when she finally
spied him, sitting with his back to the door, completely hidden behind
the chair back save the crown of his head. "Josh," she prompted again,
her voice only slightly louder than a whisper.



"Did you forget something?" she pressed when he again did not respond.



Finally, he moved, turning the chair only enough so that he could see
her standing in the doorway. Her heart sank as she took in his haggard
profile.  "Why are you still here?" he asked eventually. "Did Leo tell
you to stay, and make sure I didn't circle around and sneak in the
back door?"



Steeling her resolve, she moved with purpose into the office, dropping
the files onto a corner of the desk and reaching out to snap on the
lamp. "No, I needed to finish up a few things for your meeting with
Phillips tomorrow morning."



Blinking furiously at the intrusion of light, he replied distractedly,
"The budget thing?"



She hummed in the affirmative as she sat gingerly in one of the guest
chairs, eyes studying his guarded expression in the feeble lamp light.
He began to fidget uncomfortably under her scrutiny, finally launching
himself from his own chair. "Would you quit staring at me? I'm fine,"
he said sharply as he moved out from behind the desk and began to
pace.



"Leo sent you home."



"You do know that you work for me right? I don't pay you to enforce
other people's rules." He quickly softened the jibe with a
characteristic smirk.



"You don't pay me, the government does," she tossed back nonchalantly.
"Besides, Leo's rules bear a striking similarity to my own, with which
I know you are intimately familiar. So stop complaining and tell me
what you're still doing here."



He regarded her with surprise, momentarily unnerved by the directness
of her question, before gesturing towards an oversized, grey plastic
utility box sitting on the floor beside the desk which she had not
noticed earlier. Its bulky latches were fastened tight, the lid
covered in a peach-fuzz layer of dust, the sides sporting an
impressive number of scratches and dings. She couldn't remember ever
having seen it before.



While she labored to understand exactly what it was that was going on,
he carefully knelt down beside it, running his hand back and forth
across the lid, clearing away some of the dust. "I realized earlier
that it really won't make a difference whether I keep this thing in my
trunk or not."



Everything suddenly snapped into place. "Your Mom's box," she
breathed, the queasiness in the pit of her stomach graduating to
full-blown nausea as she allowed for the possibility that the day's
events had affected him more than either she or Leo had originally
anticipated.



"Did I ever tell you that they gave me a card?"



"Huh?" she replied stupidly, her brow wrinkling in confusion.



"The National Security Council gave me this card so that, in the event
of say, a nuclear attack, I get to go into the bunker with Leo and the
President-to ensure the continuity of the chain of command, or
something like that. And it turns out that this privilege isn't one of
those things you're able to refuse," he added bitterly. "So," he
shrugged, his hand stilling on the lid as he raised his eyes to meet
hers, "it occurred to me tonight that this box is irrelevant, really,
because I won't be out there, somewhere," he waved vaguely out the
window towards the grounds and city beyond, "I'll be in some
undisclosed location, in the most well-stocked, well-protected bunker
on the planet."



She flinched slightly at the self-recrimination and pain she heard in
his voice, and immediately tried to assuage his guilt with an empty
platitude. "Josh, he'd need you if, heaven forbid, something did-"



He never allowed her to finish the thought, slamming the heel of his
hand against the box angrily as he exploded, "My mother would need me!
My friends would need me! But I don't get that choice, do I?"



Rising from her chair, she moved to crouch beside him on the floor,
placing a gentle hand on his arm. "You wouldn't be running away. You'd
be doing what was required of you, what needed to be done."



"I'd be leaving the people I love behind," he choked out plaintively,
raising tear-filled eyes to meet her own. There was something there,
just behind the guilt and the anger, that she couldn't-wouldn't-put a
name to, and it both warmed and broke her heart to see it swimming in
his watery eyes.



"You'd be doing what the people you love would want you to do," she
countered softly, hoping he'd understand what it was she meant, but
couldn't say. "No one would blame you, Josh."



"I would," he whispered.



"You already do, it would seem," she admonished gently, realizing with
growing clarity that the day's events had caused the line between his
past, and any perceived future hurts, to become inescapably blurred.
Sliding her hand across his shoulder, she began to rub lazy circles in
the space between his tensed shoulder blades. "You can't blame
yourself for something that may never happen. Well," she amended,
forcing herself to lighten her tone, "you can, because in your world,
everything is always about you." She found herself relieved to see the
tiniest of smiles grace his lips, and felt a responding pull at the
corners of her mouth as they continued to regard each other in the dim
light.



"I thought maybe I could give it to you. The box...I mean," he said
abruptly, breaking eye contact and effectively moving his body out of
her reach as he leaned over the box and began fiddling with its
latches.



Tamping down her disappointment at the loss of physical contact, Donna
carefully lowered herself to the floor, leaning back against the desk
for support as he continued to ramble. "You could keep it in your
trunk, just in case, so I'd know that...if something did happen..."
Gingerly he lifted the lid and peered inside to assess the contents.
"I just wanted to check...I haven't looked in here for a while..."



Donna remained silent, sensing that her presence, more than any words,
were providing him with the support and reassurance he needed. He took
several minutes to rummage through the box's contents, then stilled
suddenly as he retrieved a battered navy blue cap from its depths.
Bringing it to eye level, he circled it round in his hands, leaving
faint dusty fingerprints along it's edge as he did so.



She watched him carefully as he studied the cap logo's frayed
stitching, taking careful note of the muscle twitching just above his
jaw line, the dramatic bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed deeply.



"Why Joe Pepitone?"



His head snapped up at the sound of her voice, seemingly loud after
the silence of the last few minutes. "What do you mean?"



"Wasn't he a first baseman for the Yankees?"



"How in the hell do you know that?"



She shrugged and cocked an eyebrow. "I know things."



"You know who played first base for the New York Yankees in the late
sixties, and yet you pick Penn over Cincinnati in last week's football
pool?" he shrieked incredulously.



Donna shrugged casually. "I liked their mascot."



"The Quakers are a religious group that believes in non-violence and
consensus to solve conflict! You honestly thought, based on that, that
they could win a football game?"



"Violence isn't always the answer, Joshua."



The smile dropped abruptly from his face. "Yeah. Try telling them that."



She didn't have to ask to whom he was referring.



"So, you haven't answered my question," she prodded, leaning over to
nudge him playfully with her shoulder.



"What question?"



"The cap?"



His eyes fell to his lap, where the cap now lay against his thigh,
clasped between tense fingers. With his other hand, he began to trace
the logo's careworn ridges of thread. "Pepitone had been Joanie's
favorite player. Dad was a Yankees fan, too. I think he may have
thought... or forgotten that I..." he faltered, and then shrugged sadly.
"Anyway, he was so excited when he gave it to me, and...he'd been her
favorite player."



Smiling softly, Donna reached out to take the cap from his worrying
fingers. With the flat palm of her hand she dusted his fingerprints
off of the cloth, then reached out to settle it carefully on his head.
Her smile grew at the goofy picture he presented: almost forty years
old, sitting cross-legged on his office floor, with an ill-fitting
baseball cap perched bulbously atop his wild hair. "Then maybe you
should keep this."



"Okay," he whispered softly, as he reached up and laid his hand atop
his head, and the cap, with reverence.



Rising stiffly from her spot on the floor, she reached out a hand to
him. "C"mon," she encouraged with a jerk of her head, "let's get out
of here. You can help me carry the box to my car."



Reaching up, he allowed her to help him lever his protesting body from
the floor, only barely managing to catch the cap as it became
dislodged from his head during the process. "I can?"



"Yes, Joshua, you can. It looks heavy."



"Not that heavy," he whined, putting a hand to his lower back,
stretching and wincing melodramatically for emphasis.



She dropped her head to one side, folded her arms across her chest,
and considered him with exasperation. "And you were doing so well
there, what with the chivalrous gift-giving and all."



"I was?" he asked in bewilderment.



"You were," she called over her shoulder as she walked to her desk to
retrieve her coat and bag.



"So, shouldn't I be rewarded? You know, for my exceptionally good behavior?"



Turning to face him fully through the doorway, she threaded one arm
through her coat sleeve before propositioning coyly, "If you carry
that for me, I'll bring you coffee tomorrow morning."



"Done," he replied enthusiastically, reaching down for the box before
realizing that one of his hands was already full. He straightened
slowly, licked his lips as he again studied his precious cargo. He ran
his fingers over the brim a final time, as a smile played bashfully at
the corners of his mouth. Then, after hefting his backpack onto the
desktop, he placed the cap carefully inside, zipped up the pouch, and
settled the pack on his shoulder.



"Ready?" she called out from the bullpen a moment later.



Hefting the box from the floor with a mighty grunt, he shuffled slowly
out the office door, his balance precarious as he trailed behind her.
"Yeah, but you'd better be getting me a Starbucks Venti dark roast.
This thing weighs a ton."



*              *              *              *



*Fin*