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kitewithfishMy Tic Tac Tale Tile
Title: Instead of Isaac and Ishmael
Author: Kitewithfish
Fandom: West Wing (TV series)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Donna Moss, Josh Lyman, OfC
Warning(s): suicide (minor character), terrorism, catastrophe
Prompt(s): Tic Tac Tales Prompts: (right down) Cardigan, Radiation Contamination, Parapet
Summary: Instead of Isaac and Ishmael, this is what happened.
"DONNA!"
"You know, Josh, if I need to prove that I don't actually have hearing problems, I can get you a doctor's note." Donna strides into the room and drops a stack of manila folders stuffed to the gills on his already overwhelmed desk. It's been a long night, and Josh is privately measuring the passage of the hours by the slowly fading cheer of Donna's adorable matching cardigan and camisole set. God knows the clocks aren't working. He's knocked back for a minute- Donna's completely abandoned the cardigan, and her camisole is visibly damp around the collar. Her shoulders are lovely in the candlelight.
He blinks. "What happened to your sweater?"
Donna looks up from the stacks of paper- she's been talking the whole time, Josh suspects, but there's no way he's up to tracking the conversation of anyone less than a senator right now.
She repeats herself. "My sweater?"
"Yeah, you had a sweater on before, it was pink- what happened to it?" Josh grabs the first twelve or so folders and leans back in his chair to peruse them- useless, useless, send it to Sam, Agent Casper, useless...
"I lost it on the parapet when I got all wet." She is elbows deep in the papers, and her hair is touching his desk.
"You scaled a castle? In the rain?"
"It's called architecture, Josh, you should look it up sometime. And, no, the parapet was where Congresswoman Wayne had gone to get signal on her cellphone." And that fact made him look up. There are scratches on her arm.
"She was able to get cell signal?" If he wasn't in the West Wing, the West Wing of the White House, he'd be planning his escape now. He hasn't been able to make a phone call in the past four days, and his mom...
"Yes, out of all the places in DC where you can't get cell signal because they can't send people to fix the powerlines, the Capitol Building somehow mysteriously gets cell signal, and rather than call my mom in the middle of the hot zone, I came back here to shuffle paper and watch you not eat. " Donna's voice is rising, and Josh can't pretend anymore, acting like things are okay because they don't have any reports from anywhere outside of Maryland, because there's nothing they can do even in the West Wing of the White House.
He's been hunting through old security reports, trying to find something that the FBI must have missed, but. But of all the people he couldn't stand to see hurt.
Donna has his full attention now. Her face is drawn and scared, like it has been every time she thinks he's stopped looking. But. He's gotten tired, and he didn't notice when she put the papers down that her hands were shaking. She won't meet his eyes and her teeth are bared. When he speaks, it's almost as whisper.
"Donna. How did you lose your cardigan?"
"She took it." She wipes her nose. Donna won't meet his eyes, and continues. "She took it over the edge with her. When she jumped."
"Congresswoman Wayne... jumped off the Capitol Building? She committed suicide?" It's not the first.
"She started to. And. She changed her mind." Wayne is fond of calling herself a Texas-sized candidate, and Donna is so very, very not. "She was dragging me over with her. And." Donna's eyes burn up at him and he can't move, can't even breathe.
"Josh, I made her let me go."
He should do something. But he's standing there and he's afraid that if he moves, he'll break her.
She looks away, finally. Pulls herself upright. He can breathe again.
"Donna-"
"So, here's the reports you wanted, and when the candles start running low, check in with me- Margaret has been scrounging, we'll find some more." She strides out of the room and he's standing there.
Title: Instead of Isaac and Ishmael
Author: Kitewithfish
Fandom: West Wing (TV series)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Donna Moss, Josh Lyman, OfC
Warning(s): suicide (minor character), terrorism, catastrophe
Prompt(s): Tic Tac Tales Prompts: (right down) Cardigan, Radiation Contamination, Parapet
Summary: Instead of Isaac and Ishmael, this is what happened.
"DONNA!"
"You know, Josh, if I need to prove that I don't actually have hearing problems, I can get you a doctor's note." Donna strides into the room and drops a stack of manila folders stuffed to the gills on his already overwhelmed desk. It's been a long night, and Josh is privately measuring the passage of the hours by the slowly fading cheer of Donna's adorable matching cardigan and camisole set. God knows the clocks aren't working. He's knocked back for a minute- Donna's completely abandoned the cardigan, and her camisole is visibly damp around the collar. Her shoulders are lovely in the candlelight.
He blinks. "What happened to your sweater?"
Donna looks up from the stacks of paper- she's been talking the whole time, Josh suspects, but there's no way he's up to tracking the conversation of anyone less than a senator right now.
She repeats herself. "My sweater?"
"Yeah, you had a sweater on before, it was pink- what happened to it?" Josh grabs the first twelve or so folders and leans back in his chair to peruse them- useless, useless, send it to Sam, Agent Casper, useless...
"I lost it on the parapet when I got all wet." She is elbows deep in the papers, and her hair is touching his desk.
"You scaled a castle? In the rain?"
"It's called architecture, Josh, you should look it up sometime. And, no, the parapet was where Congresswoman Wayne had gone to get signal on her cellphone." And that fact made him look up. There are scratches on her arm.
"She was able to get cell signal?" If he wasn't in the West Wing, the West Wing of the White House, he'd be planning his escape now. He hasn't been able to make a phone call in the past four days, and his mom...
"Yes, out of all the places in DC where you can't get cell signal because they can't send people to fix the powerlines, the Capitol Building somehow mysteriously gets cell signal, and rather than call my mom in the middle of the hot zone, I came back here to shuffle paper and watch you not eat. " Donna's voice is rising, and Josh can't pretend anymore, acting like things are okay because they don't have any reports from anywhere outside of Maryland, because there's nothing they can do even in the West Wing of the White House.
He's been hunting through old security reports, trying to find something that the FBI must have missed, but. But of all the people he couldn't stand to see hurt.
Donna has his full attention now. Her face is drawn and scared, like it has been every time she thinks he's stopped looking. But. He's gotten tired, and he didn't notice when she put the papers down that her hands were shaking. She won't meet his eyes and her teeth are bared. When he speaks, it's almost as whisper.
"Donna. How did you lose your cardigan?"
"She took it." She wipes her nose. Donna won't meet his eyes, and continues. "She took it over the edge with her. When she jumped."
"Congresswoman Wayne... jumped off the Capitol Building? She committed suicide?" It's not the first.
"She started to. And. She changed her mind." Wayne is fond of calling herself a Texas-sized candidate, and Donna is so very, very not. "She was dragging me over with her. And." Donna's eyes burn up at him and he can't move, can't even breathe.
"Josh, I made her let me go."
He should do something. But he's standing there and he's afraid that if he moves, he'll break her.
She looks away, finally. Pulls herself upright. He can breathe again.
"Donna-"
"So, here's the reports you wanted, and when the candles start running low, check in with me- Margaret has been scrounging, we'll find some more." She strides out of the room and he's standing there.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 06:27 am (UTC)Wow.
Um... There aren't words.
That is a great drabble, and a fascinating peak at 'how it could have gone'.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 03:32 pm (UTC)(There's a canonical moment in the flashbacks on the episode "Debate Camp" where an outgoing Republican assistant convinces Donna that there's missiles under the White House and that he takes iodine tablets for the radiation. I swear to god, I thought that's where this story was going. And then it swerved.)
Dang you're fast
Date: 2012-03-01 06:33 am (UTC)Oh lord... the truth of what happened to the cardigan. Wow. That hit me. The ending is just perfectly desperate and hopeless and just so human. I didn't figure out what happened to these guys until I went back and read the header with the "radiation contamination," but when I saw that, oh wow. Yeah, very dark little moment and yet these people are still trying to find their way through. Love it.
Fixes:
"Donna's complete abandoned the cardigan" should be "completely" and you do a little switching between past and present tense, but the story is so good I can't say I really care.
Re: Dang you're fast
Date: 2012-03-01 03:30 pm (UTC)(I was having trouble incorporating the "radiation contamination" into the story as a word without making it into an "As you know, Bob" moment. Does this pass muster for the challenge?)
Sharp eye- I've gone back and fixed the errors you mentioned. It was pretty late when I posted this.
Re: Dang you're fast
Date: 2012-03-02 01:37 am (UTC)