The Wedding (Ellie Bartlet's - nobody get excited!!)

There’s a seat free next to me. Now, how about that for a coincidence? I don’t know who saved the seat. Was it me? Oh. I think it was me. It’s the champagne. We’ll blame the champagne.

I really saved a seat for Josh? Like we’re a couple or something? Like sitting next to him at a wedding is the most natural thing in the world? Which of course it is. It is, isn’t it? Me and him. Him and me.

Okay, we’ll definitely blame the champagne. Get a g r i p, girl.

Still, it’s very fortunate that there is a free seat next to me. It’s fortunate too that he sees it, that he slides in next to me, just in time to watch the entrance of the bride.

I squeeze his hand. I want him to know, I’m here Josh, I love you, I don’t know what’s going on with this electoral math, I don’t know what it means for you personally on a professional level (do you have another level?), but I’m here. Drink some champagne with me. Let’s forget about the election, just for one night. That’s a song, isn’t it – we could be heroes, forever and ever, we could be heroes, just for one day... Well, that part is kind of a bit about the election. So let’s not use that song.

He squeezes my hand back. He’s registered. Registered that I’m here for him. Registered, let us hope, that I am an attractive woman in need of entertainment.

But no. No, that’s not what this is about. (I mean, maybe it is a little bit. Maybe it was the boredom that drove me to sampling perhaps a little too much of that delicious champagne. Did I mention the champagne?) But I’m not going to make demands on him right now. I’m going to be here for him, because he needs me.

I’m always going to be here for him. He knows that, right? That’s what the hand squeezing really means. I’m here for you now because I’ll always be here for you.

But after this election is over, there had better be some entertainment.

He’s still holding my hand.

He’s not looking at me, though. It’s as if he can’t allow himself to admit to feeling what he’s feeling, he can’t deal with it right now (will he deal with it ever?). But right now he doesn’t have the energy to fight this.

Doesn’t have the energy to fight his need of me.

Too much champagne. Definitely too much champagne.

But I’m damned if I’m letting go of this hand. I’ll never let go, says Rose in Titanic... I’m the king of the world, they say together earlier. That’s how we’ll feel together when we win, right? Him and me at the helm of a ship with hopefully a happier fate than that one... You’re the king of my world, Josh...

He’s looking at me now, though. Looking at me in the same tone that he would use to say “Donna?” when he thought I was about to unspool. I didn’t say any of that out loud, did I? Please tell me I didn’t. There’ll be plenty of time for that later. I mean, a lot later. Like after the election. Maybe. I’m hoping. A girl can always hope. Is it hot in here? Why is the room spinning?

Why are we standing up? Oh, the vows. Josh is holding me up. Josh is holding me up! I should be holding him up. I’m meant to be looking after him. That’s what the hand squeezing was about. The hand holding. That is what it was about, isn’t it? Oh, I’m so confused.

But he’s holding me up and his eyes are locked on me again and above the humming in my ears I can hear “in sickness and in health...” and then he’s whispering in my ear “and even when you’re drunk...”. What? I’m not drunk. What are you implying?

Wait up, though. Are you saying that you want to add that to our wedding vows?

No. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.

Is that what he’s saying?

He has such beautiful eyes. Usually I’m too distracted by his dimples. But he has beautiful eyes. I want to dive into them. I want to -

We’re sitting down again. We missed our moment. That was our moment right there. Why is CJ looking at me funny? Maybe I should take my head off his shoulder. But it fits so nicely there...

“Donna.” This time he is actually speaking, incredibly softly, and it’s not just in my head. At least I don’t think so. I should mind a lot more that he’s ruining my hair by running his hand through it. I really should. (It took me so long to put it up just right.) I don’t though. Not one bit.

“It’s not like I’m not enjoying this. But...” I love the way his whispering tickles my ear.

“But what?” I’m doing the big wide innocent eyes thing. I do that well.

“People will... talk.”

Serioulsy –that whole Bambi thing. I’m brilliant. “About what?”

“You know... Us,” He can't quite meet my gaze for that one syllable.

“So let ‘em.”

“Yeah.” Is it submission? Is he humoring me? In any case I love the way that he at least tries make eye contact when he says it.

It’s worked. My secwet plan to fight electowal math. He’s not thinking about that now. He’s thinking about me and what people might be thinking about him and me. I can tell, because a smile twitches on his lips from time to time as the service continues.

“If I promise to dance with you,” he whispers, still holding me up, as the wedding party files out, “do you promise to drink a lot of water very quickly?”

“For you, Josh, anything.”

Oh no. I really, really did say that out loud. Oh ground swallow me up. N o w. Please?

He raises an eyebrow. “Anything?”

I squeeze his hand in return. If only he knew.

Wakeful in Washington...

I’m slowly and blissfully sinking into much-needed, well-deserved sleep, with Josh’s arms around my waist, as became our custom years ago. The nearness of him never gets old, not even now that we’ve been together longer than we were, well, not.

“Daddy.”

Her first word ever. And since then, ever her first word.

“Daddy.”

Maybe her devotion to him is something she picked up from me, in which case there definitely shouldn’t be that slight pinching feeling around my heart when she always calls for him first. But...

She’s louder, more insistent this time. “Daddy. I can’t sleep.”

Josh untangles himself from me, running his hand down my arm to underline his reluctance at leaving me. That doesn’t get old either. Even in half-asleep states such as this one, I know awide grin is creeping across my face. I smile a lot these days. There’s worry, of course, arguments sometimes, there are sleepless nights not always for the right reasons, and there’s more time apart than I would choose, but there is a lot of smiling.

“Hey, Pumpkin.”

He scoops her up in his arms, and she wraps her arms around him, blonde curls not so much framing her bleary-eyed face as messily crowding around it, as if in her toddlerhood she had missed the edges when coloring herself in.

“You tried naming the States like I taught you?” He’s carrying her to her bedroom, putting her back in bed I guess, sliding her hair behind her ear as he loves to do with both of us.

I can imagine her earnest nodding, her wide blue eyes looking up at the only man who matters to her. (Long may that last.) “But I forgot Wisconsin and I had to look it up on that list you made for me.”

She forgot Wisconsin? How can she forget the place she spends every other Christmas and countless other holidays? I bet she didn’t forget Connecticut.

“So then I did it again and I even remembered all the M states and the New States and even Ohio and stuff, ‘cause that’s where Aunt CJ comes from even though I always forget, and Washington that’s a state even though Washington DC isn’t...”

This little girl will go far.

Or maybe not so far from here. The White House is in her blood. Her father would have the head of any boss who had her there till 1 am, no matter how charming. I shudder to think what he would do to one who bought her flowers and sabotaged her dates. He will have to be kept firmly under control. Still, I have a good few years to think of a workable strategy.

“So then I did them all and I still wasn’t asleep.”

“Did you try listing the Presidents?”

“Yeah. But it only works when we do it together.”

His dimples will be telling her that he loves being the centre of her world. So easily sweet-talked by his darling daughter. There’s a reason we called her Abigail – “father’s joy”. When he held her for the first time, he was transfixed. Imagine that – Josh Lyman, speechless. I recognised the tenderness and the wonder I saw in his eyes in a hospital on a much less happy day, years ago, miles away, when he couldn’t say “I love you”. This time he could, and he did, to both of us.

“How did we make something so beautiful?” He still often asks me that. I smile and remind him it was actually me who did most of the work.

“So I guess it’s kind of fair that she looks so much like you,” he’ll usually conclude, but every time I’m sure I detect just the slightest hint of envy in his tone.

“Not that I mind,” he’ll add, and kiss me. So it’s a conversation I really don’t mind having over and over. Another thing that never gets old. Unlike our daughter, sadly.... I want to keep her at seven forever. She’s her mother’s joy too. I hope that will not change with age.

I imagine he’s lying on her bed next to her now, as he often does, transfixed again by her loveliness and her bright mind as though discovering her for the first time, taking her little hand in his, counting off on her fingers, as they go through their routine. “George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson...”

Safely wrapped up in her daddy, Abi’s voice is drifting to the happy place of sweet dreams and turning to a whisper. She does make it to the end, though. “Uncle Jed, Uncle Matt, Uncle Sam, and you.”

Even when she’s only half-awake, she’s a pretty stubborn and determined little girl (guess it’s what you could call a dominant gene) and there is no point arguing with her.

But Josh, probably kneeling now and leaning over to brush the hair from her forehead and kiss her goodnight, does always add, “Someone’s gotta be the guy those guys count on. That’s my role.” This may be his way of letting her down gently, but I think perhaps it’s a little subtle for a seven-year-old. Still, at least she won’t be able to claim in later life he didn’t warn her.

“Good night, Princess.”

“Good night, daddy.”

He walks away, probably backwards – yes, definitely backwards, I hear a muffled “ouch” as he bumped into the wall behind him – so he can steal as much of a glance of her as possible. I wonder, did he ever do that with me?

“Daddy?” Her sleepy voice calls him back.

“You’re my favorite President.”

Out, I assume, come the dimples as his smile, his whole self, expand with pride. This isn't part of the routine. This is straight from the heart.

“Hey.” He climbs back into bed, strokes my leg with his foot, treasuring the closeness that never gets old to him either.

“Hey,” I say, as tenderly as I can because there’s something I want to clear up and I don’t want it to sound like a rebuke when I do. “You’re not going to become President just because your daughter asked you to, are you?” I’m hoping my voice doesn’t betray my increased heart rate. This question has actually been wandering around my subconscious for quite a long time now, and not only my subconscious: Helen and I have a lunch planned. You know, just... in case. I want to be ready. You never know, do you?

“There are worse reasons,” he whispers softly in my ear, then nuzzles into my neck, kissing me gently.

I love it when he does this. He knows it, too. “Josh.”

"Mmmm?"

“You’ll always be my favorite President, too.”

That discussion can wait. Come to think of it, so can sleep.