Consider, if you will....

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

Title: Deceptively Simple
Author: Teaphile
Fandom: The West Wing
Pairing: None
Rating: G


Deceptively Simple

Donna liked to compare things to other things. It was one of her ‘little quirks’—as Josh so quaintly put it—to measure concepts against other concepts and see if the analogy held up. Maybe she should have gone back to school after all, but no way in hell would she give up her current career path for a shot at mediocrity.

Mediocrity. Some people would say that’s what she already had, others would say that’s her only destiny. Donna knew, however, that she was made for more. That had been her mantra, her backbone, in the days leading up to leaving Josh assistantless. If she talked to him now he would probably say she was moving down, or at least sideways, and that she should come back and hitch her wagon to his star so she could rise along in his comet-trail and okay, that metaphor just died in agony. Sideways. Right. Donna knew that she’d just moved up a little, from being the assistant to a player to being an actual player, albeit at a lower level game.

Donna grabbed the thesaurus she’d been looking for and sat back down at her desk. Will had promised her not glory, precisely, but the chance to be someone more important in the next administration. He hadn’t promised her anything concrete, he’d just asked her to do some stuff that he didn’t have time for. Donna, for all that she loved her now-former co-workers, knew when to cut her losses and move on to a better situation, even if she had to hurt people to do it. Even if she had to hurt Josh. She owed him, big time, because if he hadn’t let her work directly for him she probably would have been out of a job after the first election. On the other hand, she might have ended up working for Toby and Sam and wouldn’t that have been interesting.

Sam. She missed him, kind of, and had a guilty thought that if she was working on anybody’s campaign it should be his, even though he wasn’t campaigning for anything right now. She was the first person he’d told about the situation in Orange County on election night and she’d felt a warm little glow of honour that he’d trusted her that much, that he thought maybe she could advise him. Sam knew Donna was more than she seemed.

Josh…Josh didn’t know. Not that he thought she was stupid or undeserving, but he’d never really seen beyond her ability to keep his schedule and tell him when he was being an ass. She could sometimes make Toby do a double-take and peer at her as if he was just really seeing her for the first time, but he soon forgot and she delighted in surprising him over and over again.

Leo and CJ and the President from the start had never underestimated her and she loved them for that. She’d heard from all of them over the past week and they had nothing but pride and good wishes for her. Whatever their feelings for the candidate she’d pledged her time to, they supported her in her last gasp for relevance. CJ even promised to kick Will’s ass if he didn’t follow through on his claims. The President promised to kick Josh’s ass if he tried to sucker her back into his slave-pens. His words, not hers; she’d loved working for Josh. At times she’d even thought she’d loved Josh, but her inner complexity (and CJ) had kicked in and shown her that while he maybe did love her, he certainly hadn’t ever respected her.

One of the assistants (and Donna tried really hard not to make that sound pejorative) came in with a message from Will. Josh had resigned and was working with his own presidential candidate. He’d be coming to New Hampshire and would probably want to steal Donna back. Oh, and have the press release ready for tonight instead of tomorrow, please and thank you.

Well, at least one part of that would be easy. The release was pretty much done. Will would vet it, of course, but he’d had nothing but praise for her work. Certainly she’d had enough practice, writing letters and making carefully diplomatic phone calls on Josh’s behalf. This was a job she could do, that she liked, that made her feel important. She could look at her words in the papers, sometimes even hear them spoken aloud by newscasters and she understood a little of what Toby, Sam, and CJ felt back in the early days. Will still felt it, she knew, that pride in having people listen to what you say and compare it to what other people said. She liked that feeling a lot, and when she’d told Will so he’d just smiled and said she had a big future ahead of her.

Just look at CJ. She went from nobody PR rep to Press Secretary to Chief of Staff. Sure, she had a degree, but CJ was also all surface. She wore her complexity like a pair of alligator shoes or a Pucci scarf. Donna’s depth was hidden in the seams. When she thought of herself, making analogies again, she thought of the time she’d worked on a Habitat for Humanity house with her cousin, who was an electrician. She had watched, in between bouts of painting trim, as Jeff had installed a light switch. Finished, it was very simple: a white plate with three switches. Behind the plate, behind the wall, though, was a tangle of wires, complicated and requiring knowledge to discern which ones went where and for what purpose. Outside it was plain, inside there was electricity that could either shock or illuminate.

She’d never tell anyone. She treasured the surprise. When Josh called, and Will was right, he would, she’d simply tell him that she already had a job and let him be shocked later on when she stood up for her first press conference.

END