Title: Their Second Date
Author: coffeeplease
Rating: LATE TEEN (Adult themes)
Category: future fic, angst
Spoiler Info: "Noel", "Evidence of Things Not Seen"
Disclaimer: WB, NBC, John Wells, Aaron Sorkin.... owners. I just lease
and try not to stain the carpet. Lawsuits don't look good on me.
E-mail address for feedback: jamhandy1@yahoo.com
Archiving permission: Sure, just tell me first
Notes: Saw "Noel" again. It inspired me. Any and all feedback would be great.


When Josh saw who was in the room, he stopped in the doorway and stared.

"What are the odds?"

The figure kept his eyes on the paper in front of him. "Just because
you change administrations doesn't mean you change me."

Josh entered the room cautiously. "What are you, the White House pet shrink?"

Stanley looked up, finally. "I don't know. Do you have a cat, Josh?"

"I've moved up in the world since you last spoke to me, Stanley. I'm--"

"The second most powerful man in the country."

Josh kept his hand on the back of the chair, refusing to sit down. "Yeah."

"Well, I was called in by the most powerful man in the country, via a
recommendation by the former most powerful man in the country. So,
while you may have moved up in the rankings, I still don't answer to
you. Sit down."

Josh stayed still. "I think I'll keep standing."

"And they say the second date goes better than the first."

"You using my old quips on me?"

"Figure if I get all the defensive sarcasm out of the way, we can go
to the heart of the matter sooner and I can be back in my hotel room
in time to watch the Giants game."

"Giants aren't going anywhere this year."

"And neither are you. Sit down."

Josh sat this time, at the edge of his seat. "This is wasting your
time, Stanley. I'm fine. No 'Carol of the Bells' or sirens or Yo-Yo
Ma."

"Who was it that wouldn't shut up about Yo-Yo Ma? You know, during
that memorable first date. You told me that someone in your life
wouldn't shut up about Yo-Yo Ma."

"I believe that was either Ed or Larry. Good luck telling them apart."

"The Mets are on tonight, too. You want to catch them or be here until
one in the morning?"

Josh swallowed hard. "It was Donna. Donna likes Yo-Yo Ma."

"And who was Donna again?"

Josh made an exasperated face. "Stanley, you know this. Stop playing
me like a cheap-ass cello."

"Who was Donna? Back then, who was she?"

"She was my assistant." Josh took a deep breath.

"And what happened to her? Did she go back to Minnesota?"

"Wisconsin. She's from Wisconsin."

"Whatever. Where's Donna now?"

Josh slammed his hand on the table. "I assume you spoke to her earlier
today, so you know where she is now."

Stanley stared at Josh. "I want to hear you say it."

"She's the Chief of Staff for the first lady."

"And?"

"And she's my wife."

"That's very cute." Stanley played with his pen. "Married chiefs of staff."

"Well, I'll invite you along the next time we double-date with the
first couple. We go to the sock hop and then we get malteds; some
nights, Donna and I heavy-pet in the back of her parent's Buick."

Stanley pretended to examine his hand. "Couple weeks ago, something
happened to Donna, right? Some event she was at... there was an
incident."

Josh made a gesture. "It wasn't a big deal. They caught the guy."

"What happened?"

Josh scrunched up his face. After a few moments, looking to all the
world like he was trying to remember, he spoke. "Donna and the First
Lady were at a library dedication in Texas. Some guy in the crowd had
a gun and he pointed it at the stage. Secret service got him. Nothing
happened."

"That's not nothing, is it? Don't they check people before these things?"

"He got through."

"Mm-hmm. He wasn't going after the First Lady, was he?"

"Nope."

"He wanted to shoot Donna, right?"

"Yeah." Josh breathed.

Stanley remained quiet for a moment. "So some crazy guy tries to shoot
your wife--"

"First of all," Josh stood up from the table quickly, began pacing
around the room. "He had two guns on him. Two guns! And no matter how
many times I question the agents, they can't give me a good
explanation on how someone with two guns gets into one of these
things!"

"How many times have you questioned the agents, Josh?"

"Not enough."

"How many times?"

"A couple."

"Ten. You questioned the agents ten times."

"Fine. Ten times."

"Did you learn anything during two through nine that you didn't learn
the first time?"

Josh stopped pacing and just stared at him.

"What's going on with the Russians right now? Wasn't there some
situation of major international import--?"

"I thought you only read the sports pages." Josh snarled.

"What's going on with the Russians, Josh?"

"They drink a lot of vodka, okay?"

"Sit down."

Josh remained standing, staring out the window. "A husband is supposed
to protect his wife. That's what I'm doing, I'm protecting my wife."

"How is your wife?"

"Hmmm?"

"How's Donna taking all of this?"

Josh calmed down and approached the table. "It was scary, you know.
But she's a trooper. She doesn't let something..."

Josh trailed off.

"What doesn't she let?"

Josh sat down. "You know, she was the only survivor of the CODEL
attack. Remember that? Wasn't in the sports pages, I know, but..."

"Yeah, I remember. You called me. You wanted me to talk to her."

"I did."

"What happened to that?"

"She quit. She quit before I could have you fly out." Josh's voice was
very quiet.

"You must have been very worried about her."

"I was, but I... I didn't do a very good job of expressing it. I
didn't really express it at all."

Stanley looked sympathetic. "You flew to Germany."

"Have you had, I don't know, cameras installed in my backpack the last
decade or something?" Josh gave a painful smile.

"I knew because Donna told me."

"I see."

"She told me that it meant a lot to her."

Josh's voice became strange and high-pitched. "Yeah, well... I was her
boss then."

"Now you're not."

"No."

Stanley tapped his pen on the table. "Are you trying to make up for it now?"

"Make up for what now?"

"Being her boss back then. Not being able to express your concern.
Although, I think that has more to do with your emotional state than
being her boss."

Stanley shuffled his papers for a moment. "Getting back to the here
and now, why did this guy want to shoot Donna?"

Josh was quiet for a moment before answering. "He's, you know,
mentally unstable."

"Yeah. I would think so."

"He believed in his delusion that she was his wife and that she was
cheating on him with me. And he--"

Josh completely stopped and drummed his fingers on the table, staring
off into the distance.

Stanley looked at him. "Anything else?"

"That's it."

Stanley shuffled his papers again. "Does Donna get a lot of mail?"

"What?"

"Mail. Does Donna get a lot of it?"

"In our home mailbox? We get bills. Occasionally Ed McMahon tells us
we've won a million bucks."

"And yet you still slave away for government wages."

"We're just waiting for our investment in those magic beans to pay off."

Stanley tried again. "Does she got a lot of mail in her capacity as
the First Lady's Chief of Staff? Does she get a lot of mail at the
White House?"

"I don't work in the mailroom, Stanley."

"But you know, don't you?"

"Know what?"

"How many death threats?"

"Stanley..."

"Death threats made to Donna Moss Lyman. How many last week?"

Josh closed his eyes. "Ten."

"Week before that?"

"Twenty-one."

"You read them."

Josh smirked, but it was a horrible smirk, full of misery. "Well,
they're not Shakespeare or anything."

"You think it's healthy for you to be reading them?"

"I'm the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States."

"You're also her husband! Do you think it's healthy for you to be reading them?"

Josh's eyes turned defiant. "I really don't care what you think is
healthy or what you think isn't healthy, Stanley. This is bigger than
that little tea party we had the last time. The guy had two guns on
him, she gets death threats, she was in the wrong SUV and I have to
protect them!!!"

Stanley let the air settle after Josh's outburst. After a moment, he
spoke softly. "You said them, Josh."

"What?"

"You said 'I have to protect them.'"

Josh stumbled for a moment. "I... I have to make sure the First Lady's
okay, too."

"Nice try."

Josh stared numbly at Stanley's piece of paper.

Stanley sighed. "So. There's a little Chief of Staff on the way."

"Yes."

"She was pregnant when the guy with the two guns was caught at a
library opening in Texas."

"Yes."

Stanley leaned forward and smiled. "Congratulations."

"Don't joke about it."

"I'm not. I'm happy for you, Josh. A baby is a wonderful thing."
Stanley let a moment pass. "And I imagine you're thrilled and scared
and some wacko threatening the mother of your child with a gun doesn't
help."

Josh's smile was tight and wound. "Yeah. They don't mention wackos
with guns in 'What To Expect When Your Expecting.' What an oversight;
I'm thinking of writing a letter to the editor." He snarled the last
part.

"You have to stop, Josh."

"Stop what? Stop my nine kinds of pain?"

"You aren't in nine kinds of pain, you're terrified. And you've taken
that fear and turned into anger, into fury. And you need to stop."

Josh opened his mouth and shut it a couple times. Finally, he took a
couple breaths and spoke. "He knew, Stanley."

"Who knew?"

"The guy in Texas knew that Donna was pregnant. That was why he was
going to kill her, because he knew she was pregnant with my child."

"Josh--"

"We hadn't told anyone. We hadn't told the President, we hadn't told
my mother, who has been praying to every God of every major religion
for the last twenty years for grandchildren. How can some crazy
bastard in Texas know that?"

Stanley was quiet; Josh had his hand in a fist pounding the table.

"How could he know that?" Josh's voice was a whisper.

"It was a guess, Josh. A guess from a delusional mind. Of course he
didn't know that."

"How do I know that?!? How do I know he wasn't at our apartment,
sifting through our trash until he found the pregnancy test?!?"

"And how do you know that every psychopath who writes Donna a letter
isn't outside the White House waiting for her with a gun, Josh? You
don't."

Josh erupted from the table. "Thanks, Stanley. You've given me a lot
to think about. I feel much calmer."

"What's happening in Russia, Josh?"

"There's a thing."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"It's sit room stuff, Stanley! I can't tell you!"

"Do you know what's happening in Russia, Josh?"

Josh breathed heavily, staring out the window.

"What have you been doing in the sit room recently, Josh?"

Josh turned around, his eyes glowing fire. "Sitting."

"Funny."

Josh turned back around to the window.

"You've been calling up FBI files on the letter writers. You've been
making sure we have their houses on GPS. As a matter of fact, a week
ago, you played a little war game with one of them, pointing something
at their house you shouldn't have." Stanley looked in his papers.
"You've been abusing your powers."

"Stanley..."

"Abusing your powers and you don't know what's going on in Russia. You
don't know how the medicare bill is going. You've been too busy trying
to make the world safe for Mama and Baby Lyman."

"That's what I'm supposed to do!"

"Not like this, Josh. You being overprotective is to be expected,
given your history. So you make Donna take naps, feed her organic
chicken. You don't point a missile at the house of a guy who
threatened to kill her."

Josh breathed hard, keeping his face to the window. "I have to protect
them, Stanley. What if something happens. I wouldn't... I couldn't
live if something happened to them."

"I know. But you're an inch away from losing your job. There's no Leo
this time, Josh. No one to protect you."

Josh slammed his hand. Close to, but not on the window. He just made
it to the wood paneling on the side. Nevertheless, Stanley started in
his seat. "You don't have to remind me there's no Leo. I'm well
aware."

"You know, Leo talked to me once. After that guy shot at the press
room. I asked him about threats to White House personnel and he told
me something that, at the time, I didn't pay much attention to. He
told me that even Donna gets them. He said he tried to keep most of
them away from you. But one--"

"The guy who had written her name in a bullet."

"Yeah. You got a hold of one."

Josh turned away from the window. "If I lose my job, so be it. I'm
leaving anyway."

"But you shouldn't go out like this, Josh."

Josh crumpled into his seat. "I know, but I've never... felt like this
before. Not even that Christmas."

"I know. It was the second worst thing that could have happened to
you, Josh. Some guy with a gun threatens your pregnant wife. But it
wasn't the worst thing. He was caught. He didn't succeed."

"What if the next guy does?" Now Josh's voice was cracked.

"Then I don't know what you'll do, Josh. You can't think about it."

Josh remained silent.

"What are you going to do when the kid is born? Get it a bodyguard? A
team of bodyguards? Wrap it in bubble wrap?"

"Those all seem like good ideas to me."

Stanley sighed, exasperated.

"I know, Stanley. I know. I've gone off the deep-end, yet again. I
should just build a log cabin somewhere between hysteria and insanity
and retire."

"Most of the time you're fine, Josh."

"You don't see me most of the time, Stanley."

"Yeah, but I see you on TV... you aren't crazy, Josh. With what's
happened to you, a reaction is to be expected. But..."

"But I have to stop. I got that."

"Have you talked to Donna about any of this?"

Josh looked back down at the table, chagrined. "I don't want to scare her."

"So then you knew what you were doing... in the situation room...
would be scary to her. And wrong."

"She'd be concerned."

"She is."

Josh frowned. "She shouldn't get upset. It's not good for the baby."

"I don't know if there's anything in the world that would stop Donna
Moss from worrying about you, Josh."

Josh gave a small smile. "Makes sense. Nothing stops me from worrying
about her."

Stanley smiles. "Marriage. Who knew?"

"So what happens now?"

Stanley shut his book. "Well, you only have a few months left. Stop
using the sit room as your own personal Risk board. Stop reading
letters threatening your wife. Get a nice baby monitor. I'm
recommending a therapist I want you to see until the baby's at least
six months old. And, hopefully, this is the last time we ever have to
meet this way."

"So that's it. Again, you leave me hanging."

"This isn't PTSD. This is you having, what you call so sensitively, a
nutty. Personally, I think you've been in this building too long.
There's a world full of fresh-air and sunshine out there, Josh. You
should learn to enjoy it."

Josh stood up and followed Stanley out. "So you still don't want to
hear about my dreams?"

Stanley turned around. "I've already had kids. I know those dreams.
Don't worry, Josh; you won't leave your baby at a bus station."

Stanley was halfway down the hall before Josh shouted. "But what about
a Senator's office?!?"

Stanley just kept walking.

"Okay! I'll fax that to you!"