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AS CHASTE AS ICE
A Post Ep for "On the Day Before"
By Heather Jarman

CODES:J/D (Josh POV)

Rated: PG-13 (minimal language; sensual imagery)

SPOILERS for "Ways and Means", "On the Day Before" and Season 2

DISCLAIMERS: Aaron Sorkin owns them. I want them, but I don't think 
they're for sale.

DEDICATED to Shipper-Sister Austin...who brought the plot bunny and 
asked very sweetly and dedicated to Forever My Dena...who was 
excited. Smooches, ladies!

Thanks to Austin and Dena who through phone calls and chat helped to 
figure it out; and to pixelvixen and Bramble who helped hang the 
flesh on the proverbial skeleton by daring to talk through it all in 
public.

******************************************************
"Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape 
calumny."
--William Shakespeare, from Hamlet
*****************************************************

Joey Lucas was a liar. 

He rolled the thought around in his head a few times, finding that he 
enjoyed blaming her, at least for a little while, because it meant he 
hurt less.

Dropping to one knee, he tied his running shoes. He twisted side to 
side a few times; bent over to touch his toes; threaded his hands 
behind his back, pulling them as far away his body as he could, 
stretching his back. He felt the familiar tightness and aches and 
wondered why it was he didn't run as much as he used to.  Why it 
seemed like the shoes only came on when he was being trotted out to 
run laps with Hoynes. Or why he felt the compulsion now, in the 
middle of the night, instead of at say, pre-dinnertime when such a 
compulsion would be normal, even commendable. 

He could probably rationalize it as a post-midnight burst of altruism 
if he made a few spot donations to homeless junkies sleeping on Metro 
benches. Just as long as he got the hell out of here and ran until 
his lungs burned and his legs screamed in lactic acid agony. It was 
probably healthier than getting drunk, which was his other impulse. 
Drunkenness usually led him to do stupid things-like showing up at 
her apartment when he couldn't remember where he lived. She must've 
sent memos to every taxi driver in the city because he always seemed 
to find his way to her place. Maybe being plastered rendered him some 
kind of homing pigeon that zeroed in on wherever she was. He knew 
he'd forever associate hangovers with having a pale blue afghan 
crocheted by her grandma pushed up against his nose; the scent of the 
lavender sachet she stored it with made him sleepy.

Walking down the hall from his office, he saw the lights in Leo's 
office remained on. He hadn't seen the President's Secret Service 
detail leave their posts by the Oval. He felt a twinge of guilt: he 
hadn't lost two sons. And yet this knot in his gut refused to abate, 
cinching tighter with the passing minutes.  Muscle spasms on the back 
of his neck forecasted a headache. He ought to sleep. He ought to.

But he had no way to ward off his dreams. They would be sweet and 
warm, soft with white gardenias and violets and the aloneness upon 
waking would hurt more than it usually did. Sleep wasn't an option.

So he stretched one last time, pressing his hands against a doorframe 
and throwing a leg at a time out behind him, going up on his toes and 
flexing, working his calves.

And then he launched into the dark.

The mild nights wouldn't last much longer. By November he'd have the 
treadmill or nothing. He jogged down the sidewalk, waved to the guard 
and sprinted through the Ellipse. A few deserted news trucks lingered 
beneath the trees; their satellite dishes draped. Darkened windows at 
the Organization of American States coupled with empty parking spaces 
endowed the block with eeriness.  Faithful traffic lights on 
Constitution Avenue changed from green to yellow to red. Ignoring a 
flashing "Don't Walk" sign, he jogged across the street and onto the 
Mall.

A layer of fine mist blanketed the ground; sloping and swirling, it 
rose and fell like breath, dropping like a translucent white veil 
over the pathway ahead of him. 

Without pausing, he curved past the buttoned down tight souvenir 
kiosks and the hot dog carts, and up the gentle swell toward the 
Washington Monument. When his chest tightened, he slowed his pace, 
keeping his eyes focused on the Capitol, glowing like a lighthouse 
lamp through the low-lying fog. He imagined he could hear the flag, 
wreathed in spotlights while flying atop the House of 
Representatives, whipping in the wind. //I pledge allegiance, to the 
flag...//

So. Joey Lucas. 

He seriously had to wonder if they could trust her anymore because 
clearly, her judgment was shot. She'd sat there and told him, to his 
face, that Donna liked him-not the what do you prefer Coke or Pepsi 
kind of like or the what sweater should I wear today, the blue or the 
red one, but the "can I carry your books home for you" kind of like. 
The "if I had to share a perfect summer day with someone you're the 
one I'd want to be with" kind of like. He found Joey's pronouncement 
tantalizing-he'd never repeated their conversation to anyone, 
choosing instead to keep it close, a cherished secret to hold safe 
along with conversations about running red lights and 
Sagittarius. //Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a thousand needles 
in my eye...//

For months, he'd watched her, measuring her by Joey's words.

//...She knew he kept the pre-tied kind hanging in his closet next to 
his '80s skinny ties. That he found them perfectly useful on the G7 
trip to Brussels or at the fundraiser in Chicago when she'd had Strep 
never came up whenever the circulating social office memos 
said "Black Tie" or "White Tie."  But they had this ritual, in 
addition to the myriad of small things they did everyday, and neither 
one of them cared too much whether it Ginger did this for Toby or 
whether Margaret was tweaking Leo's bow because this was them. She 
sat him down on the edge of his desk, lifted his collar and went to 
work, fussing and primping. He liked submitting to her whims, 
allowing himself a moment of passivity. Occasionally, he amused 
himself with thoughts of strangulation by bow tie, should she decide 
to do away with him, once and for all. He ought to remember to tell 
her that next time...she'd laugh.  Her fingertips grazed his neck 
while she worked; he watched her brow furrow, how she gnawed her lip 
when she concentrated. Her imagined her smell lingered on his tie 
through out the evening--the violets-gardenia perfume, a hint of 
coffee and comfy fabric softener. He never remembered to add the 
fabric softener until it that stupid rinse cycle was over. When she 
was doing his laundry last year, he came to associate that smell on 
his clothes and sheets and towels with her. Now that Mrs. Ko picked 
up his hampers on Mondays, everything smelled like Tide. He missed 
the fabric softener.

Tonight, tendrils of hair escaped her ponytail, a halo around her 
tired face. He resisted the urge to rest his hands on her hips so he 
could rub the small of her back while she worked on his tie; he 
supposed the hours moving boxes had left her sore. Instead, he 
brought a few funnies-not as pleasurable as a back rub, but maybe it 
took her mind off their little tragic-comic drama. He wished she had 
her blue afghan to curl up with while she waited for him. Tuck her in 
on CJ's couch, sneak her a sample from the cheese course, and tell 
her stories of what fell into the ambassador's wife's cleavage. But 
Buckland and the veto and childhood asthma...

He'd had the best intentions.//

If Joey had overshot the Donna thing by this much, what else had she 
blown? He thought, jogging past the Smithsonian, listening to the 
gravel scatter as his feet pounded the walkway. He felt another 
twinge in his side; he pushed it down. Like he'd be pushing down 
thoughts of Donna's blind date for the last hour. Jerusalem had made 
it easy at first. CJ's triumphant Sherrie smack down had been 
singularly excellent, especially coupled with the veto coup. They'd 
indulged in a modest champagne toast (leftover from the Nobel dinner) 
and CJ decided to call a full lid, sending her spin boys, Toby and 
Sam home for the night. But now he had to figure out why his chest 
still felt tight and his stomach hurt. It wasn't running on partially 
digested hot pumpkin soup, or Joey Lucas.

He did whatever he did when he needed to plot strategy. He looked at 
the knowns. 

He knew the guy's name was Cliff. As soon as his door slammed closed 
behind him, he made a few calls. Cliff. Clifford. Clifton. Something 
you jump off, not something you dated. The poetry was not lost on him.

He knew that she'd willingly accepted an invitation to have drinks 
with a man whose purpose in life was to bring down everything he 
worked for.

He knew that she liked that man because all that sadness in her face 
wasn't only because she wanted forgiveness for breaking the rules. He 
must be quite the sly serpent for her to be so smitten.

He knew she saw him again, even after she found out he'd been traded 
to Oversight, that congressional cadre of vampires that wouldn't be 
satisfied with boxes of FedEx receipts and lists of gifts given the 
senior staff. 

He knew that she behaved as she did, fully aware that she was in the 
wrong and yet she did it anyway.

So she had some self-destructive tendencies he'd never seen before.  
After a fashion, they were all lemmings hurtling themselves over a 
precipice after the president. Only Donna, of a more literal mind, 
found herself a cliff.

She, in her college girlish way, had the plays all wrong. It was like 
she and this snake-boy were playing out some political version of the 
Montagues and the Capulets, but in reality, she'd already taken a 
part and was several acts into playing Beatrice to his Benedick. 
Yeah, she took American Lit, but he took Shakespeare. Or his goldfish 
took Shakespeare, but he had paid some attention in order to pass the 
final.

He jogged by the National Gallery's East Wing, the banners announcing 
Rodin's "Gates of Hell" flapping in the cool fall breeze. Litter 
skidded over the threadbare lawns. He kicked a bottle with his foot 
sending it clattering over the gravel. His sweat drenched t-shirt 
held a chill close to his body; his leg muscles cramped. He slowed 
down, considered going back.

And then he saw her. 

Walking briskly towards the Hill, past the Grant statue reflecting 
pool. Capitol South Metro might be the only station open this late-
Smithsonian closed hours ago. He saw a flash of white-gold ponytail. 

He ran.

//Donna.// He pleaded. //Wait.// 

Shadows and a heavy dark wool coat pulled up around her ears made her 
hard to make out, but the occasional icy white glimmers from her hair 
guided him as certainly as light.

In his mind, his shouts sliced through the city's deafening silence; 
in reality, short, sharp pants muted his voice. He sprinted, leaping 
over curbs and cornering around security barriers. 

She appeared unaware of his presence, though he came close enough to 
hear her heels scraping the sidewalk.  Why won't she stop?  He fixed 
his gaze on the curve of her shoulder, the blonde sheet cascading 
over her collar, and pushed himself beyond the stabbing ache in his 
side, past his shivering and parched throat.  Mindlessly, he threw 
his feet in front of him, the pockets of rising fog obscuring his 
view. She turned a corner. He cut across the grass, the rubbery 
squeak of his shoes and his irregular breathing the only sound as he 
wove through the trees. 

He continued running; he inhaled deeply and shouted "DONNA!" 

He swore he saw her twist toward his voice.

His heart hammered in his throat and ears and then it was the soft 
thud when his shoe hit something hard and he slammed into the ground, 
knees first, but then his chest, knocking the wind out of him. The 
stinging scrapes shocked him and he hugged his knees into his chest, 
the peaty dirt mingling with blood and dew. 

//Dammit!// 

Flat on his back, he looked up through the knobby, stripped branches 
at a starless sky, feeling sharp waves of pain stabbing through his 
legs. He knew she wouldn't be coming back for him.

How could she do this! How could she not see him there! How did they 
get to this place where his pain became something she could walk away 
from? 

How could she choose that sonofabitch over him? 

With everything that was at stake...this was so much more than 
partisan politics. This was the future of this nation, more than a 
notation in his grandchildren's history books. It was how wars would 
be fought, who would eat and have warm beds to sleep in; who would 
learn to read and who would live to love another day.

And she put her own selfish needs first.  Free drinks and dinner in 
exchange for a good night kiss. They could linger in the doorway of 
her apartment and she'd tempt his enemy with the fleshy curves 
beneath her cashmere sweater. And like any snake, his words would be 
seductive, breathy promises in her ear; she'd giggle and lean closer, 
pulling him by the lapels through the door and toward her couch...

Grunting, he eased himself up so he was sitting and stretched his 
legs out in front of him. Luckily, it didn't feel like he'd sprained 
or broken anything, though he could feel small rocks embedded in his 
kneecaps. He didn't even have his cell to call a cab! Gazing toward 
the now empty sidewalk, he wondered where she was now. In the 
distance, he saw the flag being lowered as the House finally decided 
to recess. 

//...and to the Republic, for which it stands...//

This thing they were doing with President Bartlet was so much bigger 
than her loneliness and it infuriated him that she didn't get that! 
Because if he didn't give a damn about this idea of a nation they all 
were killing themselves for, he wouldn't be here, collapsed against 
an aging oak, trembling from cold and pain.  

He'd have her pressed against a wall, crushing against her and 
bruising her neck with his lips. She would be in his bed, limbs 
entangled, and skin brushing skin. Beneath moonlight streaming 
through the windows, she would be in his arms and he'd go to sleep 
with his face buried in her hair and he'd wake with her curled into 
his side. He would cup her sleepy face in his hands and kiss her 
eyelids. And they would laugh and argue about coffee and make love.

But if he decided to give into his wants, if he felt like throwing it 
over and saying to hell with all of it he needed something for 
himself, he wouldn't go down for anything less than her.

He would chase those sweet, warm sleep-induced dreams that lit the 
dark recesses of his soul. The dreams he never acknowledged he had 
except in those bleak moments where he needed something to fill him. 
In those insane flashes when his ability to feign indifference 
dissolved, he used the dreams to stay the impulse to grab his keys 
from the dish on the couch table and drive to wherever she was to be 
with her, consequences be damned. Living in his head was a weak 
substitute for any reality they might have together, but for now, it 
was all he had and it was all he could allow her to have.

He'd never voiced his need for her. It was a given. Like 'no coffee' 
and blue afghans and drunken homing pigeons were givens.  And he 
never would voice that need as long as he lived for something not 
himself. But he drew the line at assuaging his emptiness from enemy 
ranks. It violated his every code and try as he might, he couldn't 
understand how she could be so weak. 

If that bastard hurt her, if that jackass broke her heart...

Did she have to turn away from him because he couldn't be there the 
way she needed him to be? And didn't she understand why he couldn't 
be? Dammit. How did we get here? 

The Capitol's flagpole stood bare; squinting, he could make out the 
circlet of red, white and blue shielding the Washington Monument. 

//...One nation, under God, indivisible...//

//Indivisible.//

Stumbling back to the White House in a half-jog, half walk gave him 
time to empty his head.  

He stood in the shower for a long while, hot water beating on his 
back, pinking up his skin with its unforgiving heat. Dirt and blood 
from his scrapes swirled down the drain. He suspected the White House 
wouldn't run out of hot water, but he didn't want to be the first one 
to find out if they might; he stepped out into the steamy locker room 
to get dressed.

As he changed, he remembered a conversation he'd had with Sam last 
spring when the whole MS deal hit the fan. After three or four 
martinis, Sam went into these very intense, mythic places, seeing all 
of the President's staff as heavy archetypal players on the epic 
stage of human history-totally Metropolitan Opera. But if he were to 
take Sam's literary proclivities and apply them to his present 
nightmare, he vaguely suspected he might have this Hamlet thing going 
on in his head.  He recalled something about this borderline crazy 
prince transferring his parental betrayal issues onto this beautiful, 
innocent girl he was supposed to love. She had drowned after getting 
heavily into flowers--he wasn't sure that was the prince's fault. 
Something about betrayal and honor and fidelity.

He wondered if there might be something about them in there 
somewhere. 

When he left the locker room, he figured the heat must be turned down 
because the building felt chillier than usual. He wound his way up 
the stairs, past the bullpen and to his office to grab his stuff so 
he could take off for the night. Yes, he had to be back in a few 
hours, but he had to pretend to sleep.

His backpack hung on the coat rack where he'd left it; his keys in 
his "Harvard" mug. Thrown over his chair was the bow tie he'd removed 
earlier. For whatever reason, he decided to put it away in Donna's 
desk for the next time the memo came around announcing "black tie." 

He opened her deep drawer, the place she stashed her purse. Hastily 
thrown in alongside an empty lunch bag and a half-drunk bottle of 
Diet Coke was the sweatshirt he normally kept in his gym bag. He had 
a picture of her in his mind where he saw it tied around her waist 
while she was sorting, filing and itemizing the boxes for the special 
prosecutor. In her sleeveless sweater, he knew she must have been ice-
cold in the middle of the night. Borrowing his sweatshirt was just 
one of those things she did. Like eating his food or tying his ties 
or remembering to wash his clothes with fabric softener.

He removed it, pulled it over his head and ached when the smells of 
violets, white gardenias and spilled mocha latte assaulted his 
senses. He paused, brought a sleeve to his nose, closed his eyes and 
inhaled sharply.  He reached for the phone, wondering if she would 
answer if he called. 

Fingering his keys in his pocket, he decided he was ready to dream.


FIN